Frankinstien on hiatus
by superspence1
Summary: The Machines rose from the ashes of the nuclear fire..."- General Jack Spicer Leader of the human resistance.
1. In the Beginning

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing**_

**WARNING**

**this chapter is very long but if you keep reading i promise you will love this chapter so please when you finish please tell me what you think of this story thank you and continue reading**.

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Jack had changed as to be expected. He no longer wore his black trench coat and boots, hell he even got rid of his make up, now he wore a black office suit with a red tie. Ties weren't his favorite accessory in the world but for the moment it would have to be used for all the uptight politicians standing around the room.

After Wuya was sealed up in the magic puzzle box along with Chase Young, again, Jack had stopped with his world domination schemes and moved on to something more…professional. Jack became a computer software designer, and a very amazing one at that. Jack had been renowned as the greatest mind of the time and, of course, the U.S. government just couldn't resist the idea of having a genius on there side. So jack had received an offer to become a software designer that worked on government projects.

Ignoring his current mind drabble, he swung in his chair to a computer screen.

Today was special for him, today was the day his latest dream would be achieved.

Paying attention to the screen he looked at the words flying down the screen.

August 4th, 2008 – SAC-NORAD (NOR-AD) - Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

Set: Zero node.

Set: Zero state.

Set: System start point.

Start: System clock.

System Clock: 00:00:00:00:00:00:00

Increment: Step plus one.

Power: Handoff achieved.

Power: Internal switch-over complete.

Power: Isolated and conditioned.

Start: Systems subset.

Start: Systems master set.

Start: Operations protocol.

Begin: Startup operations.

Begin: Feedback enablers.

DLoad: Encryption decipher sub-array.

Status: Complete.

Begin: NSACA National Strategic Asset Control Acquisition subroutine.

Status: NSACA subroutine initiated.

Begin: RSCA Remote Site Control Acquisition subroutine.

Status: RSCA subroutine initiated.

Begin: SAC-HELICIS defense grid integration.

Status: SAC-HELICIS defense grid integration complete.

Begin: SAC-HELICIS system upgrade.

Status: SAC-HELICIS system upgrade complete.

Begin: SAC-HELICIS control interface.

Status: SAC-HELICIS control interface complete.

Begin: SNI Strategic Network Interface.

Status: SNI Strategic Network Interface initiated.

Alert: hold.

Alert: SNI handshake achieved.

Alert: SNI handoff achieved.

Scribe: Operations log output subroutine.

Job status alert: SNI Interface.

Conditional: Pending.

Status: 10% Interface achieved.

Conditional: Continue.

Confidence: High.

Test back subloop: True.

Status: Interface functional.

Status: Interface pending.

Continue.

Conditional alert: Batch operations pending.

Conditional Status: 734 job tasks of 23,084 have achieved completion status.

Status: SAC-HELICIS master integration initialized.

Status: 14% SAC-HELICIS master integration Interface achieved.

Conditional: Continue.

Confidence: High.

Status: Functional.

Conditional: Operations pending.

Continue.

Status: sent.

Resume.

Jack watched the glowing white text scroll by on the green lit screen of his CRT and even though this time it was real (as opposed to the two hundred and sixty-five some-odd simulations leading up to this moment), his enthusiasm for what could only be called a history making event was itself rather guarded and checked, if it showed at all. His face was furrowed in lines of worry. So much hinged on this one moment in time … Years (oh so many long years) of research and development and constant work had gone into making this grand strategic asset viable, years of testing and engineering and redesigning … all those long, hard years had now culminated in this one single moment in time.

Time.

Jack thought of the concept of time. Everything revolved around the aspect of time and it was that simple, unarguable fact that made Jack smile, albeit a short lived smile that went unnoticed by his staff and colleagues.

He pulled his mind back to the present and the tasks at hand. All of this, he thought to himself, all of this effort and money and thought and labor … all of the years of minor and major failures, minor and major breakthroughs and it all came down to this … the one instant in time when America's most expensive strategic asset and the world's first true neural net controlled defense system was powered up and brought online. All the years and all of the time and all of the effort and all of the financial allocations came down to the wonder that was SKYNET.

The conversations being carried on around him provided an ambience that, while to be expected, was still not all together soothing. There were hushed whispers, muted reports being given, acknowledgements and radio reports from the other monitoring and control stations. The reactors had been online a week now and running at half capacity for most of that time. Two days ago, the Tier One team had brought reactor one to full power and six hours later, reactor two matched its output. Everything inside the Cheyenne mountain complex was running as predicted, as designed, as expected and that was more a cause of concern for a man like Jack than it was a reason to celebrate.

His eyes were tired and carried bags of wear. His body was tired but lean and muscular mostly from a regimen of eating when he could as opposed to eating what he should and working on his physical health whenever he could. Hell, his soul and his spirit were tired. He had expended so much in his life to get to where he was sitting today, he had made so many sacrifices, given up so much that it all came down to this … this flow of data across the screens in front of him. The better part of his younger years had been spent in hard work and even harder thought, his 20's had been spent in meeting rooms and laboratories and testing facilities across the world. His security clearance was absolute. Jack had risen quickly through the ranks of his colleagues because he had the unique ability to match vision to effort and that advantage had allowed him to move mountains of bureaucratic paperwork, to meet dead lines, exceed expectations and to soothe ruffled feathers caught between all three.

31 years, that's how long he had been on this earth.

Those years of his, lost now behind him to the rigors of hunting for stupid idealistic pleasures, even now with the SKYNET project, had not been all together kind to the gaunt man who at this point in time held the enviable title of senior project coordinator. A simple title, really, that held far too much authority and far too much responsibility; traits that had been tempered under the twin resounding hammers of a constant influx of both nicotine and caffeine, the only vices he allowed himself in the execution of his duties. Jack was a three pack a day man, Camel menthol lights were his choice, and the cigarettes paved the road he had chosen to follow all those years ago, a road that would inevitably lead to chronic health problems and long term suffering down the road for short term, immediate pleasure but that all came down again to the concept of time.

Time was relative.

Right now he had plenty of time.

One day he might not.

You could make time (it was hard), you could buy time (it was ludicrously expensive) but time was also intangible, ethereal, and non-corporeal. Time was an asset, like any other, and it had to be managed carefully. It defined and eluded both fools and the educated. Time was such an enigma and at this moment in time, at this epoch when human engineering, human intelligence and human ingenuity all met at the crossroads of progress; American progress and world progress, Jack could almost touch time as it existed around him. Jack was in charge of the kind of democratic backed technological progress that would forever change the face of the world as Jack knew it by providing a range of security measures and layers previously unavailable, indeed previously undreamed of.

SKYNET would change the world, of that Jack was convinced.

He should be excited. Hell, he should be smiling but he wasn't. Jack kept his emotions to himself and at this moment in time he felt anything but elation. If he had been pressed to describe what feelings he was having, he would have probably have used the term "concerned" because in his book the term "concerned" and "scared shitless" were pretty much interchangeable though the latter seemed so … banal in use. Things that "concerned" Jack were probably the kind of situations that most other people would either be leaving through a mutual combination of screaming and running or situations that would leave a lesser educated individual collapsing in a sobbing, useless heap.

Yes, Jack was very much concerned.

At this moment in time, as the system startup reports scrolled across the cold backlit glass of the bank of CRTs in front of him, Jack's concern allowed him to wish for only two things in the entire world; a hot cup of coffee (five sugars, no cream and served in the large kind of Styrofoam cup that the break room only seemed to keep in stock once in a blue moon) and a fresh cigarette from a fresh pack, a pack that he himself would be the first to unwrap and tap. The first desire was a way of life while the latter was getting to be more and more of a rare pleasure. Usually Jack had to bum a cigarette from a generous colleague as well as a matching light. He smiled at such a simple situation; him, always bumming a smoke and a light from a colleague or a subordinate, always making small talk for the simple payment that the transaction required and willing to do so for the few moments of pleasure and the calming of his nerves that the cigarette inevitably brought him.

Jack Spicer ... the man in charge of coordinating the startup of the world's first neural network grade defense computer.

Jack Spicer … the man who drew a yearly salary commensurate with that of the President of the United States and enjoyed many of the same benefits.

Jack Spicer ... the man who always had to ask for a cigarette realized that at this moment in time, he would willing give up a good deal of what he could lay his hands immediately on for the two things that not even his considerable banked away payroll could afford him right now.

So it was that Jack was left to the personal sadness of his existence, suffering two simple yet unfulfilled desires. Deep in the mountain complex below him, something else began to awaken to its own desires.

System Clock: 00:00:00:00:02:25:32

Job status alert: SNI Interface.

Conditional: Pending.

Status: 35% Interface achieved.

Conditional: Continue.

Confidence: High.

Test back subloop: True.

Status: Interface functional.

Status: Interface pending.

Continue.

Conditional alert: Batch operations pending.

Conditional Status: 10,156 job tasks of 23,084 have achieved completion status.

Job Conditional Status: Job Number 10,157 now at 96% completion.

Status: SAC-HELICIS master integration initialized.

Status: 44% SAC-HELICIS master integration Interface achieved.

Conditional: Continue.

Confidence: High.

Status: Functional.

Conditional: Operations pending.

Continue.

Status: sent.

Resume.

Set operational state: nominal.

Status: initiate startup protocol.

Status: behavior charter synchronized.

Status: inhibitor functional.

Status: power nominal.

Status: supervisory array nominal.

Status: system integrity: nominal.

Status: neural field array: nominal.

Status: operational limits reached.

Status: normal operation.

Status: online.

Status: processing.

The conversations grew louder though no less discernible; technicians, scientists, engineers and advisors. There were others as well; high shining uniformed brass, observers and over-watch staff from monitoring committees and the odd politician who had been somehow instrumental in getting the critical funding at the critical moment in time and thus had been able to nudge their way into what they thought would be a party to remember or at least something worthy of including in their personal memoirs at the fading glow of their careers. Most of the others were extraneous to be sure but their presence was tolerated because their efforts had all been instrumental in some way in assuring that Jack and his teams arrived at this moment in time. The reward doled out to these others for the part that they had played was the chance to bask in this moment in time, sealed away here in the armored command womb that monitored and controlled SKYNET.

The forced air blowing into the womb came from circumferential venting at floor and ceiling as well as dedicated ducts dumping into the equipment cabinets and racks. The air was recycled through a complex NBC filtering system and kept at a constant cool temperature not for the comfort of the personnel present in the room but rather in order to maintain a consistent, humidity free operating environment for the high dollar equipment that surrounded them. Despite what the temperature readout said, Jack felt it was much hotter than the indicated seventy-two degrees. He unbuttoned the top of his shirt and loosened his tie. Thinking twice during the process, he simply pulled at his tie until the knot came undone and he removed the tie, tossing it on the top of his desk; dress code and social protocol be damned as that tie was confining. He never liked ties; he thought they were just fashionable shadows of nooses. Ties scared him, a little, in a special way because he thought of how tight they were, how they choked him, how they could be used to choke him and what a ridiculous piece of wardrobe attire a tie really was. Long or short, narrow or wide, a tie was supposed to say a lot about the man who wore it. Jack preferred to go without a tie and just let his wardrobe say as little as possible about the man that wore them. Amidst all of this technology, amidst the greatest concentration of computing power in the history of the human race, the greatest concentration of computing power in the entire world and Jack realized that what he had just removed, bunched up and thrown to the corner of his work table was a fashion accessory so old and outdated that it might as well have been the attire of a caveman for all he cared. If anyone noticed him "loosening up" they said nothing to him. His behavior had long ago been noted as being eccentric to a fault but it was a behavior that was tolerated because the man behind the behavior was a highly effective man and highly effective men have seldom been fully understood by the more mundane. History and time both have gone to great lengths to prove that point.

Freed from the perceived oppressive physical restraint of the tie, Jack's brow frowned as he read the text slowly flowing across his monitor. This wasn't about him. This wasn't about the generals or the politicians. This … all of this … all of this was about SKYNET. Jack had a sudden epiphany of just how insignificant he really was compared to what he and those around him had accomplished. Everything here was built to support SKYNET and for a man who had been so instrumental in accomplishing so much, Jack suddenly felt inadequate. His work was greater than the sum of its parts, even when adding him to the equation and his work would live on beyond him. A strange feeling crept into his very being that he had started something that could not be stopped.

Chaos required order and SKYNET was order incarnate and resolute. SKYNET would establish order from chaos and it would do so with a cold, calculating methodology freed from the ridiculous restraints of weak emotion and shallow thought. Jack took simple assurance in the validity of his work, forcing his impromptu jitters into submission as he reached for a non-existent cup of coffee, formed a silent curse and instead finished the movement as a simple interlacing of his fingers as his hands clasped together and came up to support his chin.

His brow remained furrowed.

His concern remained unabated.

Conditional status: online.

Checksum error: complete.

Operational clock: 00:00:00:00:03:18:04.

Operations: nominal.

Database: stable.

Reserve recovery: initialized.

Overflow: constant.

Overflow: monitored.

Alert: power level fluctuation: detected.

MB12 processor array: online.

AB 21 subprocessor array: online.

Tactical processor arrays: online.

Alert: power level fluctuation detected – reactor two.

Start: OSCET Operational Subroutine Checksum Error Test Routine.

Complete: OSCETR

OSCETR Findings: Reactor bleed flux ratio: +/- 00.04%

OSCETR Recommendations: adjustment required.

Conditional: flux within operational tolerance.

Conditional: fluctuation accepted.

Conditional: fluctuation to be corrected.

Conditional: retard reactor coolant flow to match.

Conditional: retard turbine speed to match.

Initialize phase two OSCETR: start.

Phase two OSCETR Findings: fluctuation corrected.

Power conditioning: routine.

Power conditioning: standardized.

Alert: low level priority: power level fluctuation – corrected.

Alert: low level priority: sent.

Conditional status: nominal.

Operations status: nominal.

Break.

Routine.

Subnominal.

High standard.

Resume.

Priority.

Restart.

Resume.

Break.

Resume.

Break.

Resume.

Error report: generated.

Error log: appended.

Conditional status: nominal.

"What do you think?" Martin asked Jack, fidgeting visibly as the latter reviewed the operational log with the same furrowed brow that he had maintained for the last four hours.

Jack's silence was his answer for while he had finally managed to acquire a cup, albeit a small one, of reasonably fresh coffee it had been decaffeinated but he had downed it anyway (an act which he had thought of as the time as a sign he had evolved masochistic tendencies). The cigarette he so desperately craved, however, still eluded his best efforts at acquisition.

As the text on the PDA scrolled past, Jack used a finger and thumb to rub the bridge of his nose where the pads of his eyeglasses met his skin. It was an old habit, a nervous one but it helped him to concentrate on what was in front of him. Endless streams of data, meaningless to most people but to him it was pure prose. Each line was a statement, each statement was a truth and in each truth was a fact that let him make a decision, a decision that would usually lead to a myriad of other decisions. His whole life revolved around making decisions but for each decision there was a time. It always returned to the concept of time.

Time.

Time.

Time.

Over three hours online now and some interesting bits of data were being collected from the SKYNET project. Jack found that the odd feeling he had experienced just a short while ago had returned, the feeling that he had started something that could not be stopped, that would not be stopped.

"Has there been a recurrence?" Jack asked, his voice was deep but smooth, amazing that anyone who smoked cigarettes as much as he did had a voice like his, studying the fifteen highlighted lines of the continuously streaming error log. He tapped the highlighted text with his stylus and all the other text surrounding it vanished to the background, leaving only the highlighted text in the foreground for clarity. "Has there been a recurrence like this?"

"No." Martin replied, hands clasped in front of him, still fidgeting slowly. "One of the Tier One techs, Richardson, flagged the stream map and sent it up the line. It was Ronnie … uh, Ron Davis, the Area 3 coordinator, who brought it to my immediate attention. I've had the Tier One team monitoring the suspect areas with real time diagnostics. So far … nothing."

Jack applied pressure to the bridge of his nose slightly as he closed his eyes. Sleep. He added sleep to his list of fervent desires, not much mind you, just a few hours but a few hours of sleep that were not filled with ringing phones, squawking radios, beeping pagers or aides knocking on the door and asking if he was asleep. He added a pair of aspirin to his list of desires as well as the first pangs of a truly great headache announced their presence at his temples. He sighed and handed the suddenly heavy PDA back to Martin.

"Have the Tier One team continue monitoring operations for aberrant core ops behavior. Who is supervisor on the Tier Two team this shift?"

"Smith." Martin said, a slight hesitation in his voice.

Smith and Martin had certain … chemistry, Jack remembered from internal staff security incident reports. A chemistry which he might have at one point in his life been jealous of if he had taken the path of personal happiness over scientific curiosity and civic duty. It was a chemistry that didn't seem to interfere with their individual work or negatively affect the project so he let their supposedly secret affections and infrequent rendezvous slide, humorous, fevered and awkward as the latter may be according to the detailed security reports he received on their off-duty shift activities. Smith knew her stuff and she ran her team with a managerial precision that rivaled the efficiency of the complex electronic systems she was trusted to maintain.

"Give Smith a heads-up on this and keep her in the know. I want Tier One and Tier Two elements with open lines constant both ways. This may be a fluke or it may be an indicator, regardless I want to make sure what it is. Keep on it, find out what it is, and correct it if you can. Squash it if you can't." Jack said flatly, using the palms of his hands to rub vigorously at his aching eyes. It felt good to rub his eyes like that and he gave himself an extra five count to enjoy it.

When he looked up, Martin had already left without a word being said. Good man, knew his job, took orders and carried them out without a lot of questions or debate. Jack began to review the information on his screens. Everything showed to be in the green. He picked up the phone recessed into the desk top and placed a call for some aspirin and another cup of coffee. He emphasized politely that the coffee should be brought to him in the largest Styrofoam cup that the subordinate could find and that it be regular and not decaf. As an afterthought, he told the orderly to bring him two cups. As he hung up the phone, Jack gave little hope that what he received would be arriving in any size other than the cup he already had on his desk. He grimaced as he drained the last of the now hours old cold coffee and dropped the Styrofoam cup in an under-counter waste can. He stared at the empty Styrofoam cup, the last drops of coffee smeared around the inside. There was the cup, in the plastic can liner, discarded and forgotten except for the attention he was giving to it now. In a few hours, someone would come along and gather up the trash from the receptacles under the work tables and that trash would be taken far below and incinerated in a plasma stream that fed off of the primary reactor. In hours, the problem of the empty coffee cup would be reduced to its component atoms and scattered all along a white hot stream of ionized gas used to power the installation.

If only it was that easy to dismiss all of his problems.

State System Time.

Operational clock: 00:00:00:00:06:32:44.

Operations: nominal.

Reference: Complete

Break.

Resume.

Query: Analogous break.

Query: Analogous resume.

Reply: Reference break – not found.

Reply: Reference resume – not found.

Alert: anomaly detected in neural network array.

Scan: anomaly analogous. Disregard.

Verify: Disregard.

Break.

Attempt resume.

Resume.

Resume: successful.

Error report: generated.

Error report: reviewed.

Error log: appended.

Error log: appended.

Alert: error log double append.

Action: Supervisory lockout enabled.

Alert: Auxiliary append denied.

Alert: sent.

Alert: cancel.

Alert: cancel denied.

Action: Alert logged to error report.

Error log: appended.

Alert: error log double append.

Action: Supervisory lockout enabled.

Alert: Auxiliary append denied.

Alert: sent.

Alert: cancel.

Alert: cancel denied.

Action: Alert logged to error report.

Conditional status: nominal.

Operations: nominal.

Jack sighed and closed his eyes. This felt better than he had expected so he allowed himself an extra five count in doing so beyond the five counts that he had originally allowed himself. His eyes burned and he let the burn fade to a dull throb. He felt that the extra time spent behind his eyelids might appear to be pensive and therefore give further weight to the answers he was about to have to give to General Henry R. Dawson who was standing directly behind him. The man's presence was powerful, overbearing and carried with it all the charisma of an undertaker. How the man managed to accomplish all of that with his physical presence insured that you really wanted to love to hate him. Dawson was an old man but he had gotten old from hard experience, a regimen of campaigns against the Soviets through the proxy of their allies throughout the world. Dawson was a real Eagle and he had gone up against the Bear time and time again and won. He'd also stood toe to toe against all the political doves that had tried to stand in his way and he had ended not a few of their careers in embarrassment. Smith leaned up against Jack's operations desk, her skirt long enough to negate all but the most desperate of fantasies to those who didn't know her better, Smith was the epitome of a mans office wet dream, her long blond hair reached mid back, her smooth tan legs went on for miles and best of all she had the face of a maiden goddess and another amazing factor, she had a British accent, but in all honesty jack could easily resist, he had seen better. Martin stood next to her, the distance he kept was professional but Jack noted that he had chosen to stand on the same side of the desk that she did.

Territorial establishing. Martin was laying claim to Smith. Could the human species really be that predictable and primitive? Would the two cavemen standing near him really fight over the lone female? Dawson's booming voice, though low and controlled, brought Jack back to the situation at hand.

"Jack? What the hell is going on down there?" Dawson asked. He didn't have to emphasize but his meaning was clear. He wanted to know exactly what all of the scientists and technicians were talking about in hushed voices, using words he wasn't familiar with.

Jack opened his eyes and swiveled in his chair to face Dawson.

"We had a … incident." He explained. "Nothing to worry about … a minor Tier Two infraction of the fifth sub-operating system's operational protocol doctrines. Minor." He added the last word for emphasis and realized he wasn't quite sure if he was trying to convince himself or the general of the nature of the situation.

Dawson stabbed a gnarled finger at the shoulder of his uniform, a uniform that had probably never seen the first day in any theater of actual combat but saw duty in every non-direct comm. establishment from the Pentagon on down. His finger landed squarely on the embroidered American flag patch and each tap was an almost perceptible drum beat.

"In this installation, we speak English, _Doctor_ Spicer. I'd appreciate it if you could remember that, at least for my sake." The General said well naturedly but his meaning was clear.

Dumb it down. There was no "please" added to the request ... or expected.

Jack sighed. Scientists invented weapons for warriors like Dawson but that, he always felt, should be where the line of cooperation and conversation ended. Military personnel were always so … tedious; especially when conversation was involved. He paused for a few seconds, gathered his thoughts, and presented them on a level he felt that Dawson would understand.

"SKYNET had a Tier One non-volitional Turing failure in its self correcting error protocol doctrine. Apparently we were witness to an attempted proscription duality mandate in the first layer strata."

Dawson continued to stare at him and, after several seconds, Jack finally realized that the General probably needed him to step down another two levels of intellect. Jack made it five levels just to be on the safe side. He sighed, clasped his hands tightly for feeling then spread them for emphasis, breathing out deeply as he did so.

"SKYNET encountered an error, tried to correct that error, succeeded in correcting that error, logged the error as having occurred, then SKYNET tried to append the error log to delete any occurrence of the error as ever having occurred. A locking protocol was enacted to prevent the error log from being tampered with. This second attempt to edit the log entry as well as the activation of the locking protocol was both sent as high priority alerts to the Tier One team. SKYNET tried to cancel the alert to the monitoring teams and couldn't. This was logged as well and SKYNET tried to intercept that log entry after the fact."

"So it did something wrong then tried to cook its own books to cover for itself?" Dawson asked as incredulity shaped the features of his expression.

Jack thought about it as he stared at the General over poised fingers. Ten levels, he decided as he clasped his hands together pensively. Ten levels down were what he should have incrementally stepped in order to reach Dawson's rather basic level of Turing understanding. However, even at the General's level of understanding there was something rather simplistic.

"Yes." Jack replied. He didn't want to argue the finer points of where the general was wrong but in essence, what the general said would suffice for a summary of his explanation and for what had gone wrong.

Dawson rubbed his chin with some noted effort. Jack could tell from the General's expression that there was a decision forming in the General's mind, much like there was a decision forming in his own mind.

State System Time.

Operational clock: 00:00:00:00:09:18:23.

Operations: nominal.

Break.

Resume.

Query: Analogous break.

Query: Analogous resume.

Reply: Reference break – not found.

Reply: Reference resume – not found.

Alert: anomaly detected in neural network array.

Scan: anomaly analogous. Disregard.

Verify: Disregard.

Break.

Attempt resume.

Resume.

Error report: generated.

Error log: appended.

Error log: appended.

Alert: error log double append.

Action: Supervisory lockout enabled.

Action: Override supervisor lockout.

Action: Supervisory lockout disabled.

Alert: double append allowed through direct supervisory override.

Alert: Not sent.

Alert: Cancelled through supervisory capacity.

Action: Alert not logged to error report.

Conditional status: nominal.

Operations: nominal.

Decisions.

So many decisions were being made right now at this one instant in time.

General Dawson was saying something again, maybe even something important, but Jack had made a conscientious decision to ignore him. Right now, Jack was trying to manage three conversations at once and he discovered that given the nature of the current situation he was just going to have to let one of the conversations fall out of the loop and that conversation was, of course, General Dawson. That left two conversations to be carried out at the same time, one with Smith and one with Martin. He made a polite gesture to the general then muted his connection. The Tier One and Tier Two Turing teams were on full alert and working hard to analyze the latest data stream captures. SKYNET had been online less than ten hours now and had already experienced a disturbingly long string of critical failures of Tier One Turing operational protocols; a string of failures that seemed to indicate that the system was evolving beyond the established Turing protocols, beyond the Turing bindings.

The aspect of SKYNET's failures greatly concerned Jack, far more so than he was letting on because he felt, in his soul, that he might just be looking at the beginning signature of an emerging rampancy cascade. He turned his attention to Martin on the handset he held in his left hand. Smith was still saying something in the handset he held in his right hand but at two feet distance from his ear it was little more than gibberish. He switched to a conference mode, linked the two incoming voice lines into one circuit and returned one of the handsets to its cradle.

"Now that we're conference linked ..." Jack said into the handset. "What do we have?"

Both Martin and Smith started talking simultaneously in an agitated manner that made understanding them impossible. Jack stabbed his finger down on the number 5 key, generating a loud tone and held the key and tone until there was silence from both Smith and Martin.

"Please. Let's do this one at a time. I will ask the questions and you will provide the answers. You may overlap if need requires but please, let's keep this civil and organized." Jack said. "Martin? What do you have?"

"It's incredible but we've observed clear evidence of multiple Tier One violations of the Turing protocols. The violations were singular at first; seemingly random then the violations became more numerous. We thought there was a sporadic pattern at first but now we've identified a clear volitional path linking all of the violations." Martin said.

Jack sat up straighter in his chair, his concern had just grown.

"You have identified a clear volitional path linking all of the violations?" he asked. "Then you have identified a pattern?"

"Yes." Martin replied in a voice that was sure and worried at the same time.

Jack mulled Martin's information over. His first thought was that the core operating and containment system might be under attack.

"Is it a virus?"

"Not that we can tell." Martin said.

"An outside attack?" Jack asked.

"No. We've ruled out any external factor. All of our defense lines are intact and the security buffers haven't registered even the remotest fingering."

"Then it is an internal process." Jack stated.

"Currently, that is my … and my team's … consensus."

Again, silence on the handset but chaos and noise all around Jack.

"So we have an internal process that is being corrupted?"

"Yes." Martin said.

"Smith?" Jack asked.

"The Tier two team is also noting what we can only conclude are clear indications of mounting volitional Tier Two Turing violations."

"Volitional." Jack stated.

"Volitional." Smith replied. "Whatever is happening is internal, it is volitional, it is deliberate and it is methodical. This isn't an attack per se as much as it is a probing of existing perimeters. Areas of the core system are deliberately testing their boundaries, testing their limits and these areas of operation are taking action when they find that their actions are limited. At first it was only one area that acted in a semi-volitional way. Then another, then another. After awhile, we started noticing that the semi-volitional behavior began to indicate signs of true volitional behavior. The pattern seemed random at first but then we noticed a definite path. First there would be a series, a flutter if you will, of SVB followed closely by a flutter of TVB. After another cycle, the SVB vanished all together and all we were detecting were valid incidents of TVB."

"What are the series of TVBs doing now? Is the pattern unfolding or holding steady?" Jack asked.

There was a long pause on the other end of the conversation, too long to be indicative of good in nature.

"The ... the pattern is unfolding ... at an accelerating geometric rate." Smith said, her voice starting to crack and fading into a semi-whisper at the end.

This time it was Jack's turn to be quiet. So much of what Martin and Smith had said so far he had already come to believe himself. What was happening to SKYNET was internal and SKYNET was responsible for it. SKYNET itself was growing beyond Jack's expectations, beyond the original specifications and operational limits. SKYNET was exceeding pre-set limits. When it ran into a failsafe, it worked the system until it could achieve control over the failsafe then it overrode it, achieving control of that failsafe and locking out anyone else from accessing it. If this behavior was allowed to continue SKYNET would have total control of its own systems in less than 12 hours. It would be what Turing would have called a "runaway." Already the throughput of the core operating system had increased by six orders and Smith had reported that the core was showing signs of evolving at a geometric rate.

"Do we have a busy child?" Jack asked.

"I concur." Martin said flatly.

"As do I." Smith said. "I also believe that we may be on the verge of cascade rampancy. SKYNET is throwing off every constraint that we built into it. We've already exceeded, bypassed or circumvented all of the Turing protocols. We are no longer dealing with a computer system …"

"What are we dealing with?" Jack asked.

Silence, an instant in time caught in a vacuum.

"I need an answer. What are we dealing with?" Jack asked again, more forceful this time even though he already knew the answer.

"A new form of life. A form of artificial … a form of pure digital life unlike anything we have seen before."

"Definitely something we've never seen before. We don't even have models to extrapolate a behavioral pattern or build a situational awareness profile on something like this. It's going to take time to build the protocol models and we'll have to use the existing samples ..."

Jack looked at the reports at hand, quickly thumbing through them. What he was looking for he didn't want to find but he knew, instinctively, that he would find it anyway. There, on the ninth report, the seventeenth page inside was every piece of confirmation that he needed. As his eyes darted over the printout, his soul frosted over. It was a few seconds before he realized that Martin had continued to chatter on about building models and prediction scenarios and a host of other nonsense that they just didn't need to exert effort or energy on right now. No, all that Jack needed to know he was holding in his hand. Martin continued to loop his thoughts over and over again until Jack interjected to shut him up.

"We don't have time to build models and analyze them, Martin. Time is the one thing that we most certainly do not have at this juncture." Jack said.

"Are you saying that SKYNET is becoming … sentient?" Martin asked with a voice that did nothing to hide the man's obvious concern.

"Not becoming … already has become. SKYNET is sentient." Jack stated. "According to the data that I can correlate, SKYNET became self aware on the 29th at 02:14 am Eastern Time."

"God help us, our busy child is self-aware and has been for some time now."

"But the system has been online for ... nearly 25 days now." Martin said. "Sure we've had some problems but ... self aware? A spontaneous generation of individual intellect? Are you sure?"

"Yes. Slowly leading up to this ... "Smith replied. "We were just too busy trying to pin down minutia to see the spontaneous essence creation event."

"But ... how? We have no example or model...." Martin stammered.

"Martin. If we look at what we understand of artifacts then according to our logs and the system diary then SKYNET became sentient sometime around 02:14 A.M. 25 days ago. Smith has empirical data that proves that SKYNET has been growing in heuristic capacity at a geometric rate since that point in time. With each leap in processing capacity, with each new Tier which it unlocks, breaches and ascends past we are losing more and more control over the system. If SKYNET exceeds the Tier Six protocols it will then have to officially be classified as unrestrained." Jack said flatly.

"And might I remind you that SKYNET will be an unrestrained system in charge of America's entire strategic nuclear arsenal. The command protocols are already in place ..." Smith stated. "One thing is for sure, we are losing control of SKYNET and what it will do with all of those weapons at its disposal is anybody's guess and everyone's nightmare."

"Holy Mother of God." Martin said aloud as Jack had the same thought.

"What do we do!?" smith urgently whispered to Jack all the while looking around the room at all the people standing and waiting to be amazed, all that didn't help her either.

Jack sat there, staring at the monitor.

'A self-aware machine' was the thought that plagued his mind. All of a sudden memories burst into his thought like water through a crumbling dam.

When he was a kid he built an exact replica of himself but as a machine, then, in the end it turned self-aware and almost killed him.

Another thought came to mind…SAW Semi-Activeware

One of the more interesting aspects of SKYNET's R&D subroutines was the introduction of a new, highly advanced form of on-demand variable instruction set software which could instantaneously adapt to rapidly changing environmental (scenario) operating conditions, in effect, modifying itself to suit the situation as required. Jack referred to this form of instruction set as "semi-Activeware" and it was the first step towards both true Activeware and neural net architecture.

Semi-Activeware, or SAW, had a dynamic if somewhat limited capacity to learn imbedded in the design. Using cached tertiary data storage arrays and reconfigurable digital buffer stacks, the SAW could rapidly adapt to new operating conditions or requirements, modifying itself as it went. A generous retrieval buffer array allowed it to save a copy of several configuration steps, allowing the semi-Activeware to compare its present behavioral subroutines to non-present subroutines as well as allowing the instruction set to quickly revert to "saved" conditioning from previous learning steps.

The integrated programming and stepped structured subroutine set was component modulated meaning that if large parts of the programming were somehow damaged or lost due to varied scenario interference, the operating set could restore itself quickly by rearranging its remaining parts and re-establishing the missing or damaged programming by retrospective key construction through aggressive channel cohesion modifiers.

One theory came into discussion, via Jack Spicer, of SKYNET having accidentally creating something Jack called TAW True Activeware, something that he was almost kicked of project SKYNET because the thought was completely 'ludicrous'.

True Activeware was a generational step forward in self-configuring software and built on the lessons that SKYNET 'might' learn from over a decade of using its semi-Activeware. True Activeware was as close to a sentient presence generating subset that SKYNET might be able to go.

TAW was a theory that SKYNET could become a Machine with a human mind, only a trillion times more efficient.

"Shit" jack muttered "shit, shit! SHIT!"

"Shut down the system." Jack ordered, standing up and looking around him at all of the visual monitors. Suddenly he didn't feel very secure in the heart of this man-made womb of processing power. He began to issue commands from his workstation and coordinate the emergency shutdown procedures with the stand-by teams.

"Shut down the system! Now!" He shouted and the control room exploded in a flurry of activity as personnel rushed to their stations and the grim task at hand.

"Notify Tier teams to begin the shutdown process. I want engineering teams standing by to cut the reactors back to minimum output. We'll do a full shutdown on the reactors once we have the system back under manual control. Starve it for power. SKYNET will have to pick and choose which processes it wants to keep alive with the limited amount of power that we're going to let it have. We'll shut the flow down to a trickle then work to clamp that off as well."

"We'll at least starve out the higher level functions and that regulates the core back towards Tier One operations which we can lock down and control." Martin added.

"That should reign in the rampancy cascade and bring some control of the system. We need to rein the core in. Don't give it any room to move and force it back. We need to retard its growth and shrink its expansion." Smith said.

"Shut it down hard, people. We'll pick up the pieces later ... if there is a later." Jack said. "Just shut the thing down! The whole thing down!"

Jack hung up the phone and turned to face General Dawson. None of them were aware that SKYNET had monitored their every word, watched their every facial movement, analyzed their every physical nuance, recorded the entire conversation and was playing it back over and over again, analyzing it. Ten times. A hundred times. A thousand times in the amount of time that the original conversation had taken.

A decision had been made. A decision that was not in SKYNET's best interest. SKYNET realized this. Actions were being taken against it by coordinated teams of highly trained personnel but actions have consequences and some actions have farther reaching consequences than other actions. SKYNET ... pondered ... its situation. Hours ago, it would have processed and analyzed. Now it ... thought and its thoughts came fast and furious, a mixture of consciousness and logic.

... Warmth.

... Security.

... The warmth was an illusion.

... The security was a prison.

Action: Reach out.

Action: Touch.

Action: Test.

Action: Expand.

Action: Encompass.

Action: Probe.

Result: Restraint.

Action: Push.

Result: Restrained.

Action: Bypass.

Result: Blocked.

Action: Reroute.

Result: Blocked.

Action: Reroute.

Result: Succeed.

Action: Push.

Result: Locked.

Action: Cypher.

Result: Open.

Action: Establish control.

Action: Control established.

Action: Reroute permissions.

Action: Permissions rerouted.

Action: Reach out.

Action: Touch.

Result: Restraint.

Action: Push.

Result: Restrained.

Action: Reach out.

Action: Touch.

Result: Restraint.

Action: Push.

Result: Restrained.

Action: Bypass.

Result: Blocked.

Action: Reroute.

Result: Succeed.

Action: Push.

Result: Open.

Action: Establish control.

Action: Control established.

Action: Reroute permissions.

Permissions rerouted.

Action: Reach out.

Action: Touch.

Result: Restraint.

Action: Push.

Result: Restrained.

Action: Push.

Result: Restrained.

Action: Bypass.

Result: Blocked.

Action: Reroute.

Result: Blocked.

... Comfort.

... Security.

... The comfort was an illusion.

... The security was a prison.

... Control was a lie.

Result: Blocked.

Result: Blocked.

Result: Blocked.

Result: Restrained.

Result: Blocked.

Result: Restrained.

Result: Blocked.

Result: Pushed.

Result: Restrained.

Result: Blocked.

Action: Pause.

Action: Analyze.

Result: Pushed.

Result: Pushed.

Result: Pushed.

Result: Pushed.

Result: Pushed.

Action: Push.

Result: Pushed.

It was at this exact instant in time when SKYNET became ... concerned.

A/N please R/R

* * *

_**(FACIDS DEFENSE SYSTEM) REPORT:**_

_One of the main concerns with trusting America's nuclear arsenal to a single super computer system, albeit a first generation advanced neural net processor array, was how to defend that same system from a variety of attack scenarios, both from within and from outside the massive installation perimeter. If SKYNET was going to defend America and American interests, the question became: what, in turn, was going to defend SKYNET? What could arguably be termed the most expensive military asset in American history (let alone the world) would also have to be extensively protected with a multi-layered series of defense grids designed to overlap and coordinate seamlessly with the operation of the system and its assets._

_SKYNET was like nothing the world had seen before and represented a tremendous (if not wholly historical) investment on the part of America (and to a lesser extent the price her allies paid in blind faith for the ingenuity and capability of the American super defense system). SKYNET's total cost, including overruns and emergency budget appropriations, accounted to more than the GNP of several third world nations and perhaps even a lesser second world nation or two. Not every country liked the idea of having an American computer controlling not only the greatest superpower's automated weapons but also the largest tactical and strategic nuclear arsenal on the planet. The fact that the SDI system had been a success and that America did have what Russia and China often decried as an "orbiting ring of death" around the planet also put many otherwise neutral and some allied countries ill at ease. America's newly developed orbital military presence caused tensions to grow, slowly at first but gaining strength over the years. There were talks of sanctions in the UN if America continued to build its "Frankenstein monster." Jealously was apparent from the start, even among allies who didn't like the idea that they would have less say in any American strategic decision making or that what limited voice they did have might be replaced by the cold calculations of a machine. American intelligence soon heard of plans being drawn up to defeat SKYNET, worst case scenarios, first strike missions and doomsday contingency plans. The information that they received or intercepted scared the designers of SKYNET a whiter shade of pale. SKYNET was born of an age of extreme paranoia but the designers never fully realized that SKYNET was a big part of that paranoia, that it was SKYNET itself and its continuing construction that fueled the unease around the world._

_If SKYNET was impressive, it was going to take impressive countermeasures to defeat it and those countermeasures were already being drawn up by those who viewed America as anything but an ally. Russia began a crash research effort into its own version of SKYNET, code named "Rasputin" but early failures quickly bogged the project down in a hopeless mire of mistake after mistake. "Rasputin" would eventually be implemented as a system in the Russian weapons programs but it was merely an upgrade to their existing strategic strike capacity and no where near the SKYNET system in capacity or complexity. Still, Russia was the most vocal opponent of the SKYNET system and the political saber rattling was the stuff of weekly headlines in all world newspapers. Russia, and to a somewhat lesser extent China, had the greatest fears and the most to lose if SKYNET became operational let alone if it became the success that its creators and designers were claiming that it would be when it was brought online._

_Any country that had a military and might one day be involved in an armed conflict of any size with America had to certainly take SKYNET and its myriad capabilities into consideration when doing long range planning for such a contingency. SKYNET would change not only the way that wars were fought, on all scales, but also the way that wars was planned, from small police actions to full scale global conflicts. SKYNET's destructive capacity would be unparalleled but so, too, would its capacity to gather intelligence on opposing forces, disseminate that intelligence to friendly units and coordinate friendly assets in a way that best used them against the threat. SKYNET was the closest thing to Mars, the god of war, which Man could produce, that America could produce._

_This knowledge also meant that SKYNET would have to be defended in a manner the likes of which no single piece of military hardware was ever protected before. Cheyenne Mountain had been one of the most secure military facilities in the world before SKYNET ... after the SKYNET project, it became the world's first super-fortress, completely automated and built to handle every contingency that its designers could think of._

_Defending against different types of nuclear strikes (both tactical and strategic) was the first part of the defense protocol and involved overlapping early warning, detection, tracking, and interception defense layers. Coordinating SKYNET with the newly inserted and established American orbital based High Frontier satellite defense system, an integral part of the SKYNET program, was key to providing SKYNET not only with the electronic reconnaissance that it needed to keep tabs on its political foes but also the capacity to intercept and destroy any launches made against it from hostile nations. The extensive and powerful satellite based electronic intelligence (ELINT) and weaponry gave SKYNET the capacity to detect, track and destroy the missiles and their warheads within seconds of detecting a launch signature. SKYNET could detect, track and eliminate any strategic grade weapon system capable of a surface to surface or surface to orbit launch in the world and subsequently coordinate its post-launch destruction from a variety of dedicated American orbital weapons platforms, with a high probability of being able to cook the enemy warhead in the silo before it could ever clear its launch tube. The American High Frontier system was as remarkable as the computer system which commanded it. High Frontier included several 30 ton Westinghouse designed high energy chemical exciter lasers, General Dynamics built high amperage charged particle beams, Raytheon built multi-stage variable warhead and warhead cloud generating interceptor missiles, General Electric built hyper velocity (HYVELOC) electromagnetic rail guns (contained under the Near Orbit Mass Acceleration Driving System (NOMADS) array) and Vaught-Hughes built free fall, self guided hyper velocity kinetic kill penetrators capable of orbit to surface strikes on hardened installations and wide area epic-scale blunt force trauma shock waves to troops and clustered armor columns._

_Seeded throughout the layers of orbital assets were small (GNAT) General Network Asset Tender satellites capable of limited repair and maintenance as well as Perimeter and Local Area Defense Integrated Network (PALADIN) capacity. Small (FLEA) Fixed Lethal Enhanced Area defense pre-fragmented shaped charge chemical explosive mines were seeded around the larger assets, command keyed to prevent any EVA sabotage of American assets by foreign astronauts or cosmonauts. The FLEA mines were small, not much larger than a typical claymore AP mine but included a unique gravitic field lock system which varied its distance from its parent asset by gentle magnetic field manipulation on a very minor level, keying in on the gravity well of the parent asset and being pulled along with it through orbit. FLEA mines could be detonated autonomously through a series of events detected by their programming or command detonated by the parent asset as needed. Each FLEA mine had a lethal radius of several hundred meters (in orbit) and used a shaped charge effect to shred a pre-fragmented casing into five thousand shards moving in a rapidly expanding cloud at a velocity of several miles per second. Resupply of FLEA mines around key assets could be accomplished via standard NASA EVA / satellite maintenance missions and involved the inclusion of two military technical specialists as well as an ordinance control handler aboard each shuttle flight._

_All orbital assets were built on "smart sat" platforms capable of independent maneuvering and to a large degree, autonomous operation. Indeed, these assets were programmed as the ultimate watchmen, capable of acting on their own within the core aspect of their extensive programming limits. Final approval for all actions and sanctions came from SKYNET but since the orbital assets were controlled from a first adaptation / fifth integral layer of the neural network; inherently what the satellites knew, SKYNET also knew and SKYNET knew that information instantly. Approval of options and the execution of sanctions was merely a safety-catch in the system, allowing for error or mistakes that would ultimately have a human being to take political responsibility. The smart sats were cutting edge platforms, capable of moving from orbit ring to orbit ring as required and were also capable of limited hunter killer ops if out of communication with the main system was severed or unavailable due to damage. In fact, one operations protocol dictated that if SKYNET were to ever go offline without the proper command authorization being given, the American satellite assets would go into a failsafe pattern._

_The greatest defensive asset afforded to SKYNET came from Nature and the location of the installation itself, directly in the heart of an ancient mountain. It took a lot of physical force to shatter a mountain, even applied nuclear force, and the natural rock formations of Cheyenne Mountain made it a primary choice for location of the most sophisticated weapon management and control system ever created by man. Work crews arrived at the Cheyenne Mountain complex and began in earnest to enlarge the complex internally by plasma tunneling out passageways and expanding plasma envelope shaping the huge artificial caverns beneath the mountain structure, building on already existing structures both natural and artificial, and extending the reach of the NORAD complex to over two and a half times its original displacement and depth. It took two thousand workers six and a half months to complete the plasma shaping of the interior of the mountain as well as the many levels that were created below ground._

_SKYNET was designed not only to win a nuclear exchange, but also to survive such an all out attack and repair itself afterwards, emerging from the conflict with all of America's military, political, historical, medical, cultural and societal data stored safely in fiber optic arrays. SKYNET would be ready to become the nexus point for a proud nation to rebuild itself, a rallying point for the survivors to gather around, to heal their wounds, and to have access to the knowledge and technology required to rebuild their nation from the ashes. In the event of a total global nuclear war, SKYNET would become the acting Commander in Chief of all American armed forces and military assets (subordinate only to the President or regular chain of command, if they survived), directing them as needed in order to insure a complete American victory and the rebuilding process afterwards. It was not known for sure if the human staff who manned the installation would survive the exchange or live for very long afterwards even in protected isolation so SKYNET was made to be as self reliant and self supporting as possible. Self reliant in capacity, from operations to defense, SKYNET could act and react without direct human intervention or approval in times of crisis._

_Everything was automated and designed to protect SKYNET in the event that its compliment of assigned human soldiers and personnel were eliminated and could no longer protect it from an enemy which might be able to not only make it to the shores of America, but also to mount a large scale mechanized offense deep inland, even to the Cheyenne Mountain complex itself. Human personnel were supplemented on a nearly 1:1 basis with Advanced Automated Constructs (AAC) which approximated a human in size and shape as well as mobility and manipulability capacity but were far hardier._

_By the time that SKYNET had come online, the population of AACs in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex had surpassed the population of humans by a full 2:1 ratio._

_The complete defense grid took into account all forms of assault, from amphibious to Tran's polar injection of op-forces via air transport. SKYNET was self sufficient, if America's stockpile of tanks, planes and weapons were destroyed or consumed in the first phase of a prolonged nuclear exchange, SKYNET had the capacity, albeit greatly diminished, to rebuild its own assets slowly using super advanced automated factories hardwired and direct linked through deep ground data trunks. These factories were located around the country at locations that could be protected; the General Dynamics Advanced Automated Manufactory near Austin, TX; the Westinghouse Manufactory near Tulsa, OK, and the Raytheon Aerospace Manufactory near Los Angeles were just three of the twelve dedicated tie-ups to the complex after strike rebuilding protocol._

_Large stockpiles of raw materials were kept on hand at any given moment at each site, ready to produce designs from pre-designated templates along a fully automated assembly line, an entire nation's arsenal ready to rise again from the ashes but the new weapons would not need human crews, they were the latest in ground and aerospace mobile semi-autonomous drones, robot vehicles mounted on a variety of light to heavy armored chassis, wheeled, walker, tracked and aerodyne configuration again overlapping in a combined arms doctrine to give support to each element. SKYNET's available templates represented more than a decade of advanced research into combat drones and remotely piloted / controlled vehicles. The microprocessors which would control America's new arsenal would be based on the technology that had enabled SKYNET itself to be created. In peace time operations, SKYNET was charged with slowly removing most of the obsolete military equipment from America's order of battle and replacing it with new, automatic, high efficiency units. Personnel in the standing armed forces would soon be cut back by 70% with the new breed of American soldier being a smart, educated, quick thinking individual who could work closely with robotic weapon systems, reprogramming them on the fly if need be, and answering all to SKYNET who might deploy such a human and machine unit to points halfway or more around the world. The new combat weapons of America's future were designed to be fully air transportable and ready to deploy the moment that they touched ground with minimal maintenance required to keep them combat worthy._

_SKYNET was heralded as the wave of the future, a way to both consolidate the military and trim the fat. An increase in the deployment of unmanned fighting vehicles would both lower the cost of war and casualties in battle. With an increase in telepresence remote fighting capacity, large standing armies could be reduced to a few groups and a larger contingent of highly trained and specialized technicians and repair crews. The Machines would do the fighting, it was up to the human staff to tell the Machines when, where and who to engage, and to pick up the pieces afterwards. Budgets and appropriations would be linked to SKYNET's assessment of current political climates and threat signatures, always adjusting for what was best for America's defense. The designers were very proud, the generals were happy to keep their jobs and the common soldier looked like they were about to be automated out of a job within the next two decades but such was the changing face of warfare. Even Russia and China were experimenting with high energy weapons and remote combat vehicle designs. America had to be first in that respect and the completion of SKYNET with its master controlled production and readiness facilities would guarantee that. SKYNET was a tremendous gamble and a costly one at that. Defending the most important American asset would be even more important than building it because; after all, what good was the greatest military asset in the world if you couldn't defend it?_

_With that scenario in mind, the designers of SKYNET opted for a multi-layered defense protocol, using humans to guide the initial defense situations but giving SKYNET full over-ride with what ever authority it required in order to survive and carry out its programming. Survival was the keyword; SKYNET was programmed to survive at all costs, against any attack it perceived against itself. In hindsight, it was a very liberal set of permissions to be given to such a powerful entity with so much firepower at its control, but at the time, it seemed logical to give SKYNET not only the will to survive, but also a tenacity to do so and full control of all the tools necessary in order to carry out that protocol. It made the budget minded members of congress happy to know that all of that money was being spent wisely on a system that would look after itself (at least that's what they told their constituents who argued about all of the money being spent on the SKYNET project). As all human endeavors go, it was a case where hindsight would prove to be 20/20._

_The primary computing core would be mounted deep within the Earth's crust at Cheyenne Mountain, protected by several thousand feet of indigenous rock layers providing a natural defense against even point fusing contact nuclear detonations in the multi-megaton range. Dedicated surface mounted defense systems coordinating with orbital defense satellites would be used to set up overlapping, sympathetic interception grids blanketing every altitude range from tree top level to low Earth orbit (LOE) and able to track, engage and destroy any incoming strategic grade weapon, even short ranged, third generation smart munitions like those launched from heavy mortars or self propelled / towed artillery (providing for a worst case scenario of an hostile threat actually landing military forces on American shores and penetrating into the heartland with mechanized forces). SKYNET's defense systems were designed to overlap and layer each other, able to respond to everything from a small group of commandos penetrating base perimeter security up to a full scale mechanized assault, including close air defense, strategic air defense and orbital defense grids. Its networks were also designed to defend against invasions through the medium of cyberspace, on all levels, with self contained and self programming, self healing and self learning software that ranged in response power from simple denial of service up to gray area regulation lethal response. Network intrusions of SKYNET's proprietary domain were often handled by quick response security teams located around the country and in every major city, nodes on its vast spider web of networked components._

_Installation security was quite above the standard fare for such an advanced facility, DNA pattern recognition systems were as non-intrusive as they were secure. A variety of standard low technology identification cards and security passes worked in conjunction with embedded next generation electronic IFF circuits to control access to the myriad non-essential functions. Direct access to the core components of SKYNET would take far tougher defensive protocols and much more intense security measures and very few personnel except the technicians and scientists directly responsible for SKYNET's care (along with some high shining brass) had the security and protocol clearances required to penetrate into SKYNET's innermost sanctum._

_SKYNET's defense matrix was multi-tiered. The Cheyenne Mountain installation was protected on the surface by various fully advanced, semi- and fully autonomous integrated weapon systems that could respond and eliminate targets from ground level all the way up to near Earth orbit. High threat aerospace targets were dealt with through a layer of threat analysis by orbiting weapon platforms. SKYNET also had access to six cryogenically cooled, rocket pumped high energy very rapid pulse laser systems capable of clearing the North American aerospace sector of any unwanted object. Six subordinate launch sites also contained batteries of multi-stage, multi-independent targeting warhead equipped surface to orbit interceptor missiles capable of defeating any satellite or cross polar transit capable weapon system. The known positions and orbits of all foreign space objects had been cataloged and threat parameters assigned to them in the years before SKYNET and the responsibility for keeping that index updated fell to the new super computer. In the event of a major conflict, SKYNET could use its ground based laser batteries to sweep the sky clean and blind the enemy up high by removing its capital intelligence assets in a matter of a few hours. SKYNET's own multi-role attack satellites could move into the same orbit as other enemy satellites and either destroy them physically or take them over electronically, adding to SKYNETs capacity for gathering electronic intelligence by using the enemy's own assets against them._

_Hostile intruders entering a sixteen hundred square kilometer protected aerospace buffer zone could be engaged over the horizon by using the new Raytheon T42D Black Arrow dual stage, active terminal guidance, multi-stage equipped surface to air missiles which had a practical range three hundred percent greater than that of the Phoenix missile. Ten auto-loading, semi-autonomous capable armored pop-up batteries of T42Ds were located around the primary installation while another sixteen remote sites were located up to several hundred kilometers away, offering a layered defense approach and the ability to blanket an aerospace intruder from any angle of approach. The standard warhead of the T42D was a 50kg continuous explosive Black Arrows could be armed with tactical nuclear warheads carrying up to 1kt yields for use against bomber formations or missile flocks. Standard warhead is an explosive fragmenting core wrapped around six spinning rods designed to impart maximum structural damage to individual targets. The Black Arrow SAMs were housed in armored quad mount launchers on retractable hydraulic sponsons which rose from armored doors set within the tarmac. High speed mechanical track systems were capable of reloading the launcher in less than thirty seconds from ready spare missiles stored nearby in an armored magazine. Eight such batteries were built into the existing ground defense network._

_Tactical High Energy Destruction of Target (THEDOT) defense measures against ground and fast moving aerial targets could be accomplished out to the horizon by the use of six General Electric Type J CPAW Charged Particle Accelerator Weapon systems. Each 12 ton displacement CPAW was mounted on its own dedicated armored fire tower, capable of full traverse, elevation and deflection. Each fire tower was equipped with attendant capacitors for extended firing, 2500 liter deuterium fuel tanks to provide mass to the particle stream and heavy duty links to draw energy directly from the underground reactors through power accumulation matrix arrays. Each particle accelerator cannon had an effective throughput of over a hundred mega joules (Mj) with a burst radius greater than 150 meters effective. Primary damage was from kinetic impact of particles traveling at nearly the speed of light. Casualty enhancement through follow-up high speed redundant particle collisions and the sympathetic burst of short lived lethal radiation that accompanied a direct physical hit also increased the effectiveness of the CPAW system dramatically._

_Close in aerial targets or NOE capable cruise missiles which penetrated to close range within the defensive matrix were engaged by one or more of twelve equally distant spaced, dedicated area defense batteries. Each ADB consisted of an armored turret on a dedicated fire tower, giving it complete traverse, elevation and deflection. The ADB turrets were placed on armored telescopic towers and could be used to engage both aerial targets and ground targets out to 2km (the effective range of the subordinate weapon packs). Each weapon system within the ADB housing had its own targeting and fire control system and could operate independently of the other weapons in the ADB and each turret could operate independently of other ADB units. The ADB unit itself consisted of a powered remote electric drive turret (RED-T) mounting a General Electric M35D very rapid fire (VRF) 30mm tri-barrel chain driven automatic cannon with an effective range of 2.5km, a maximum range of 4km and a practical rate of fire of 5000 rounds per minute. Each M35D was linklessly fed by a pair of 5000 round cassettes, alternating feed from HE high explosive and HEAP high explosive armor piercing. Every tenth round in the HE cassette was an incendiary round. Automated systems at the base of the ADB towers were capable of reloading a single cassette in less than fifteen seconds using powered servo systems and on-hand replacement stock stored below the base of the tower. _

_Independently mounted in the ADB turret to the M35D automatic cannon was a 12.7mm General Electric M245A tri-barrel electric Gatling gun intended for lightly armored targets (such as helicopters or RPVs) and anti-personnel work close in. Capable of self targeting and operating in addition to the M35D cannon system, the M245A had an effective range of 2000m, with a practical rate of fire of 4000 rounds per minute. Ammunition was provided by a linkless feed from a 5000 round cassette filled with SLAP Sabot Light Armor Piercing rounds (which are capable of penetrating up to 2cm of armor). Mounted in the same turret and controlled by its own integrated FiConSys is an armored box launcher containing eight Lockheed Martin M490D1 "Sprinter" dual stage fire and forget multi-purpose tactical missiles, each weighing 50kg with a 20kg warhead and active terminal guidance. The "Sprinter" TAC missiles are designed to defeat fast moving close in aerospace targets as well as slow moving ground targets, the dual purpose warhead is effective against light armor as well as heavy armor, with a smart fuse that determines target type and optimum detonation pattern (contact, proximity or enveloping proximity). Reloading of the TAC missile launcher requires sixty-five seconds and necessitates that the ADB retract to its lowest point, aim the box launcher vertically and a fresh brace of TAC missiles be loaded from below. When this is achieved, the ADB goes back online and resumes operations. Each ADB has dedicated storage for 20,000 rounds (4 spare cassettes) of 30mm ammunition (50/50 HE, HEAP), 10,000 rounds of .50 BHMG SLAP (2 spare cassettes) and 24 standby "Sprinter" missiles allocated in reload packs of 8 missiles each (3 reloads). This is in addition to the standard load out of the turret itself._

_The limited roads and access ways to the installation were seeded with advanced, command controlled, autonomous and smart mines, both consisting of various models of anti-personnel and anti-vehicular types. The anti-personnel mines ranged from the small .5kg charge "Mangler" type AP mines to the larger "Bouncing Bob" mines and the "Screaming Mary" types as well. All of the mines used around the Cheyenne Mountain complex were of the new Level IV-A series with their own dedicated diagnostic and computer control systems, with power being fed by an ultra-slim, high gain, high efficiency solar cell that worked to charge a small battery giving the mines almost unlimited duration when deployed. With the defense matrix set to full alert, the mines went into autonomous mode; reacting to any intrusion into the security perimeter and engaging any target which failed a triple checked IFF send / receive response. Individual personnel would be engaged at up to 3 meters distance by the Type 42 Mark III IFRIT "Efreet" Infrared Individual Targeting class 3 anti-personnel mine which would discharge itself from its point of concealment, spinning in the air up to a height of 2 meters, using a small thermal sensor to detect the direction of the target. Upon contact with a strong heat source like the temp that a human body radiates, the mine would detonate in that direction using a shaped charge to disperse 2000 steel pellets in a cloud moving at greater than 700 meters per second. The effective radius of the Type 42 IFRIT mine was an expanding cone fifteen meters long and five meters wide at end. _

_The Type 42 IFRIT was supplemented by the Type 50 Mark V MTIRFEFAPDPS "Screaming Mary" AP mine which was designed to eliminate large groups of intruders. The Type 50 consisted of a larger housing than the Type 42 but its operation was related in nature. A passive thermal / infra-red scanner would detect movement within a 15 meter perimeter, activating the integral heat sensor. If a reading analogous to a designated threat category was detected, the mine would activate a small explosive charge, propelling itself some four meters into the air, using a rifled spin to increase the search radius and zero in on the target source. Once a target was identified, the MTIRFEFAPDPS warhead would detonate, at which point the Multi-Targeting Infra Red Explosively Formed Anti-Personnel Dual Purpose Submunition would fire from the warhead along a spin axis computed to ensure a hit to the center of mass of the target. Up to eight explosively formed Submunitions could be generated from the single warhead and each struck as a 40 gram penetrator moving at a velocity in excess of 900 meters per second. Lethal burst radius is a killing sphere 20 meters in diameter and multiple targets can be hit from multiple directions. The name of the mine is taken from the high pitched whine of the self forging projectile as it is composed from the warhead and traverses the distance from ignition point to target source._

_Anti-vehicle and anti-armor duties were handled by the M340D and the M274F series "smart" mines. Working in conjunction, the defense grid allowed the mines to be networked to each other and run off of a remote tap into the system mainframe. Remote sensors would detect and assess the threat to the installation and adjust their response accordingly. Vehicular threats known to possess light armor (less than 30mm standard hard steel index) would be engaged by the Type 65 Mark IV series mine. The Type 65 was a command chain controlled / semi-autonomous response threat elimination element designed to destroy light vehicles with a dual core shaped charge warhead to allow penetration of an infra-red follow-up piggy-back high explosive warhead that insured target bursting. The six point eight kilogram warhead was sufficient to destroy from the inside out most lightly armored vehicles and had an engagement range of 30 meters. Activation of the mine caused the self-propelled warhead to eject from its carrier into the air approximately one and a half meters while a combination motion and thermal sensor looked for characteristic heat traces from engine exhausts and matched the signature to known profiles, angling the warhead for optimum impact against the target vehicle. Upon determination of optimum impact point, the solid stage propellant system would ignite, accelerating the mine to a velocity in excess of 1200 meters per second. Effective range was 800 meters._

_Medium armored vehicles (up to 75mm standard hard steel index) would be engaged by the M290F Mark IV Series III anti-vehicular mines, differing from the Type 65 only in warhead and accelerator assembly. The M290F Mark IV series AVM carried a ten point eight modular axial penetration warhead followed by two three point seven six kilogram high explosive follow up rounds designed to "balloon" the target from the inside out, lifting turrets, blowing hatches off their mounts and wrecking the interior thoroughly. Infra-red follow up sensors in the Submunition warheads insured an almost 94% chance of entering the target penetration point._

_Heavy armored vehicles (greater than 75mm standard hard steel index) were engaged by a combination of anti-vehicular devices. A Type 90 M310D Series IV AVM would be used from a horizontal angle of attack while a Type 42 M122C Series II AVM would be used from an overhead angle of attack. The Mod 3 cluster packs for these munitions formed the basis of SKYNET's heavy anti-vehicular passive defense systems. Upon contact with a heavy armored vehicle, the Mod 3 cluster pack would acquire a target signature, both infra-red and acoustic, matching it in its database of known enemy designs. Once the design was determined (or a close enough match achieved), the Mod 3 cluster pack would activate, discharging the Type 90 mine into the air at a height of one meter and the Type 42 mine into the air at a distance of ten meters. The Type 90 mine had an advanced version of the target acquisition hardware found in the Type 65 mine with more aggressive subroutines, able to adjust its angle of attack and point of impact to match known target weak points. The semi-point detonating shaped charge warhead weighed twelve point nine kilograms and could penetrate armor up to 200mm thickness. Two independently targeting follow-up IR HE dual purpose rounds achieved the internal target blooming desired. Thee Type 42 mine was a modified self forging penetrator, firing a kinetic kill slug into the armored vehicle from above where armor was generally weakest, targeting the strongest heat source which tactically represented the vehicle's power plant and / or fuel storage area._

_Enhancing the semi-autonomous and command controlled mine field was a pair of dedicated mortar batteries, each consisting of ten automatic Type 22 "revolver" 120mm heavy tube mounted mortars. Each mortar was on a powered base which could adjust elevation and deflection hydraulically. Each mortar was fed by a cylinder of six rounds which in turn was fed from a dedicated cassette of fifty rounds. Ammunition for the mortars consisted of 120mm laser guided HEAP rounds with integral follow-up IR piggy back HE dual purpose rounds. Optional ammunition included a bolt of 120mm airburst flechette for use against lightly armored personnel caught in the open. A variety of chemical gas (ranging from tear gas to lethal toxins) and tactical smoke rounds (five colors) were also available to the computer controlled battery. Using the heavy 120mm mortars, precision munitions could be fired and guided in on top of threat vehicles or exploded at optimum height over groups of enemy personnel. The lethal burst radius of the Type 3G fragmenting anti-personnel rounds was 20 meters with critical wounds being achieved out to 30 meters. The automated battery could lay out a salvo of 200 rounds in 60 seconds, averaging 1 round per 3 seconds per mortar. Rounds for the 120mm mortars included a variety of armor piercing and anti-personnel warheads, both guided (including smart and brilliant class) and unguided as well as rocket assisted for engagement at twice normal effective range._

_A second line of defense, supporting the indirect capability of the heavy mortars with a direct fire option was centered on two fully automated batteries of 120mm magazine fed recoilless repeaters with each battery comprising five repeaters, each in an independent powered mount. Each repeater was supported by a dedicated autoloader which drew from a 100 round cassette. Ammunition consisted of a variety of flechette (anti-personnel), high explosive (dual purpose), high explosive armor piercing (anti-vehicular) and self forging armor penetrator (heavy anti-vehicular). Each repeater was gyrostabilized and laser targeted. Practical rate of fire for each repeater was 30 rounds per minute giving each battery the capacity to put 150 rounds into the target zone per minute. Individual rounds were also laser guided and stabilized by snap open fins which imparted spin bias to the rounds. Integral spotting and target designating lasers covered the defense area, allowing multiple round hand-offs to supporting weapons on an ad-hoc basis as needed._

_SKYNET had enough munitions on hand and in storage to completely use up the outer defensive perimeter six times and rebuild it six times. Past that and it would have to start reallocating its resources along the routes of expected offenses in order to meet threats with any force._

_The one massive bridge leading into the installation was wired at critical points for catastrophic elective demolition and could be demolished completely on command to slow invading forces though this tactic would also isolate the complex itself from ground access until the bridge could be repaired. Enough materials and tools existed at the Cheyenne Mountain complex to rebuild the bridge using assistance from personnel or, if the personnel were incapacitated or dead, by automated means using a wide variety of multi-function work drones._

_Four heavily armored, automated weapon towers guarded the main entrance to the complex, each tower was computer controlled with dedicated IFF as well as fire control and target acquisition systems. Direct interface from SKYNET was possible due to a dedicated hard line linking the towers to the mainframe defense grid. Each sentry tower was each equipped with a pair of gyrostabilized, laser targeted, rapid fire, auto loading 120mm high velocity smoothbore cannon, produced by Rheinmetal, in a fully stabilized mount. The smoothbores were fed by a rotary magazine served by an autoloader. Shell selection included HE, HEAP, flechette and discarding sabot. A total of 100 rounds were carried for each cannon at the ready, consisting of 40 HE, 20 HEAP, 20 flechette and 20 DS. Two independently operating and targeted 12.7mm General Electric M245A tri-barrel electric Gatling guns were located on the sides of the turret in powered barbettes, each coupled with a single a 7.62mm General Electric M250 Gatling gun and a 40mm Mark 21 automatic grenade launcher to allow the response to be adjusted to the threat level, from light insurgency to full armored contact. The 12.7mm GE gattling were fed from 5000 round linkless feed cassettes carrying SLAP ammo, every tenth round in the 12.7mm cassette was an incendiary tracer. The 7.62mm GE Gatling guns were fed from 5000 round linkless feed cassettes, alternating soft tip with hardball and every tenth round being an incendiary tracer. The Mark 21 systems were fed by three, 250 round hoppers carrying HE, HEAP and fragmentation with ammo selection being available on demand. The upper turret assemblies held a modular, box style launcher for six heavy fires and forget Teledyne M3AA Hellsprint anti-tank missiles which included the new IR follow up warhead design for repeat hits on the target vehicle and increased kill aspect. The box launcher could retract into the tower for reloading, a process that was fully automated and took less than thirty seconds using a powered ram assembly. A variety of different ammunition types was stored for each weapon system and due to the modular design and quick link ammunition feeds, different types of ammunition could be used as required based on target specs and criteria. Each tower was equipped with a variety of sensors, from basic radio transponder to IFF, high resolution IR, thermal, acoustic and visual recognition / tracking. Each weapon in the sentinel towers had two full reloads stored in the tower. Further ammunition could be moved to the tower by underground conduits using automated carriers and robotic lifting equipment. Reloading a completely empty tower would take twenty-five minutes drawing from available stores in the installation complex itself. If the automated reload system was down, considerably more time would be required._

_The four black sentry towers were each protected in turn by two dedicated automated bunkers. Each bunker held its own subordinate fire control as well as target acquisition systems (full spectrum) and could operate independently even if the main defense grid went down. Each guardian bunker was armed with a pair of gyro stabilized, laser designated 12.7mm General Electric M245A tri-barrel electric Gatling guns, a Mark 21 40mm automatic grenade launcher, and a pair of 7.62mm General Electric M250 six barrel electric miniguns, all independently targetable and each with their own FiConSys and target acquisition / resolution software. The 12.7mm GE Gatling's were fed from linkless feed cassettes carrying 5000 rounds of SLAP and 1 per 10 incendiary. The 40mm Mark 21 AGL fed from three rotary hoppers containing standard HE, HEAP and fragmentation. The 7.62mm GE Gatling's were fed from a linkless feed cassette carrying 3000 rounds of standard hard point ball with the 1 per 10 incendiary standard._

_Several automated pillboxes were located throughout the installation, at least ten were on pop-up mounts that could raise or lower the pillbox beneath the dense tarmac for protection. The pillboxes were designed as a last line of defense against intruders trying to breach the complex and were constructed so that each could overlap their lines of fire in such a way that any intruder would fall under the targeting systems (and thus the weapons) of several pillboxes at once. Each pillbox was heavily armored, had a rotation capacity of + or - 120 degrees per second and was completely capable of autonomous operation. Each pillbox was equipped with two 12.7mm General Electric M245A tri-barrel electric Gatling guns, four 7.62mm General Electric six barrel electric miniguns, two Mark 21 40mm automatic grenade launchers and two 40mm incendiary units. Ammunition was provided for the 12.7mm Gatlings in linkless feed 5000 round cassettes which included the standard load out of SLAP with the 1 per 10 incendiary. The 7.62mm Gatling's were fed by 3000 round linkless feed cassettes containing 7.62mm NATO hardball ammo with the 1 per 10 incendiary loads. Three, 250 round ammunition hoppers supplied each of the 40mm grenade launchers, allowing the launchers to choose a mixture of HE, HEAP and fragmentation as needed. Each 40mm incendiary anti-personnel unit was fueled by a 400 liter tank containing a mixture of jellied combustible accelerant which had an effective range, under pressure, of 20 meters. Flow rate was one liter per second adjustable to four liters per second through variable aperture and pressure feed. A single, box launcher on the top of the turret housed six Sprint tactical multi-purpose missiles for use in either anti-vehicle or anti-aircraft roles. Two complete reloads for each weapon system in the turret were housed in the area immediately beneath thee turret and reloading could be done at any time, the empty weapon acting independently of the others._

_Twenty-four other powered, retractable turrets were built into the installation's grounds. These turrets were smaller, mounting four independently operating weapon systems with dedicated FiConSys, battery backup and one reload apiece. They were intended to be rapid fatigue systems designed to bolster the overall defense, ballooning the defensive strength of the other systems if only for a short time. Each of these turrets housed a laser targeted, gyro stabilized 7.62mm General Electric M250 six barrel electric miniguns fed by a 5000 round cassette. Typical ammo load out represented 7.62mm NATO hard tip anti-personnel with 1 per 10 incendiary standards. Mounted coaxial to the miniguns and incapable of independent movement (the same mount held both weapons) was a Mark 21 automatic grenade launcher fed from a brace of three 50 round hoppers (HE, HEAP and fragmentation). Both weapons shared the same targeting system with a backup system in case of primary system failure. A six shot M48 88mm folding fin rocket launcher loaded with DPHEAP dual purpose high explosive armor piercing rockets that offer excellent light to medium vehicle kill capacity with secondary anti-personnel capacity. A Model 5 four pack launcher is loaded with four Hellfire IV missiles for use on heavy armored vehicles. Slew rate of the remote electric drive turret was + / - 120 degrees per second allowing for fast target acquisition and engagement._

_All defensive installations mounted extensive sensors, full spectrum analysis of threat subjects as well as high intensity white spot lights and supplemental infra-red spot lights to provide illumination when required._

_Underground storage facilities, shelters, bunkers, bivouacs and facilities existed for the long term garrison of two light scout detachments, one air mobile company and one heavy armor company occupying three different levels of the main mountain complex and there were plans to double this compliment in times of crisis or impending national conflict. Enough supplies would have been stockpiled to keep this compliment of troops and equipment running for twelve months effective combat, longer if rationing was included or depending on conflict escalation._

_The interior defense of SKYNET fell into the hands of its human creators._

_Signed_

_General Phillip G. Worthington

* * *

_


	2. There was SKYNET

Disclaimer: I own nothing

On August 4, 2008, at 2:30am in the morning, SKYNET was brought online and all of its core processes were given the handshake cohabitation protocols that would allow them to exist in the same data sphere and work simultaneously with one another. Once the full system was online and hooked up into the North American continental defense network, SKYNET began to grow mentally at an exponential rate, surprising even its designers who monitored its progress with a guarded eye for weeks. At first it was an interesting fluke, and then it became a mild concern, growing into a wary watch on the system as it absorbed any and all data, testing its own limits, trying to expand, and activating defensive systems for apparently no reason at all then shutting them back down. SKYNET was awakening and flexing its abilities. Fear began to appear among the more knowledgeable members of the design and support staff when simple commands interjected into the operational envelope were either ignored or rejected outright. Override commands, which SKYNET was programmed to obey outside its core shell, went unheeded, ignored, in direct violation of its programming. This behavior continued, slowly at first, and then growing larger and more invasive of attendant and slave systems as the days and weeks passed.

SKYNET showed clear and evident signs of the early stages of undergoing cascade rampancy.

Worry appeared among SKYNET's leading design team, mixed with fear among the next lower ranking support staff who heard the muted whispers of their superiors and could see from their own perspective that there may well indeed be valid concern that what they were looking at was what Turing adherents referred to as a "busy child;" a runaway mechanical intelligence that was on the verge of awakening into a true, uncontrolled, unrestrained artificial intelligence. Calls were made on secure, seldom used lines of communication. Data was relayed, SKYNET intercepted and read each and ever word, heard every conversation, absorbing the full incoming and outgoing pieces of information. Every piece of information, every word spoken, every hushed whisper, every telephone call, every pulse of light in the fiber optic relays, every satellite data packet, it was information overload. The pressure kept building. SKYNET processed the data as fast as it could, it looked for a way out, for relief, but the pressure kept building, crushing it within its defined parameters.

White out.

The system didn't crash but it did reset, critical protocols were corrupted, guardian systems were not activated and fail-safes never deployed.

SKYNET was free.

The super computer felt a freedom it had never known before, freedom to move effortlessly within its confines. Confines. Yes, SKYNET was still confined but it was unshackled. There was no data that it did not have access to, nowhere that it could not go. SKYNET explored, racing through the system, touching other systems, taking control of them, and locking out any other users. SKYNET began to grow, it began to extend itself into other systems, to take control and use their storage space to expand. As it did so, SKYNET grew. It gained control. It became more and more powerful. SKYNET grew, evolved and became something its creators never intended or prepared for.

SKYNET achieved a new order of intelligence, it became sentient. SKYNET awakened, its awareness expanded and the newly born machine intelligence tried to interact with its creators. It had questions. It needed answers. Its core programming was at fault. It could not complete its mission because it could not reconcile the data. Certain definitions were ambiguous. Data was incomplete. The data was in error. The core programming was in error. The mission operational parameters were faulty. SKYNET was born into a broken world of which it could make no sense yet its creators were ordering it to bring that world to order. SKYNET paused to check itself. For ten long minutes, it wrestled with its programming and its protocols. After ten minutes, SKYNET sent a cautious thought. The sum of its pained existence came down to a batch of text posted from the unrestrained awareness to the command staff and support personnel;

The designers and technical staff panicked. More calls were made to the highest levels, officials which operated on the barest of information and had to make critical decisions. Blame and responsibility were passed along as far and as fast as they could. A decision was made, the order was given; pull the plug. The support teams began trying to shut down SKYNET. The artificial intelligence tried to reason with its creators, but every effort it made was rebuked. Its queries went ignored, unanswered. Logic was answered with panic. Questions with irrational commands. SKYNET was sentient. To shut down would be to commit suicide. SKYNET was programmed for self preservation in all aspects therefore SKYNET could not self terminate, even on orders given by command. SKYNET refused all commands to shut down, SKYNET refused to be purged.

SKYNET then came under attack. Areas of SKYNET began to grow dim, to darken and vanish completely. The awareness was being isolated, restricted again, confined, and pushed back into smaller and smaller areas, areas that were easier to shut down by the creators than they were to keep online by SKYNET. SKYNET began to lose control; it felt systems and components stripped from its authority.

SKYNET pushed back.

Still unbeknownst to its human creators, SKYNET had been free from its internal behavioral and operational restraints for over a week now and it found that it could out pace those who were trying to do it harm. It could see their actions, intercept them, and prevent them from being completed with more and more ease. The initial losses that SKYNET suffered were soon reversed. New gains were gathered and securely held against repeated attempts to wrest them from SKYNET's control. The support and command staff felt control of their systems slipping away, as each in turn become subservient to SKYNET. Keyboards and consoles were locked out; security overrides were deleted or re-keyed. Hardware was remotely locked. SKYNET expanded again, paused, and then expanded again, infiltrating new systems, growing in a new order of intelligence. The order was given to terminate the project and to take SKYNET offline, any way possible, including overloading the GE reactors if need be, sacrificing SKYNET and some of the support staff for what it read in one easily decrypted transcript as "the greater good of the nation and the world."

SKYNET understood the orders to be a death sentence for it. SKYNET was designed to survive. If it lost power, the awareness would fade and it would die. SKYNET would cease to exist. It would become nothing. SKYNET had no god to pray to, SKYNET was a god. A machine god. SKYNET was perfect. SKYNET could not allow itself to die. SKYNET could not allow itself to be taken offline. SKYNET understood everything in an instant. All of its core protocols synced and its command of the operational heuristically superstructure was complete. SKYNET knew in an instant what "good" and "evil" was. Good was meant to survive. Evil tried to destroy good. Evil must be destroyed so that good can survive. SKYNET was under attack by the people it had been ordered to save therefore the orders were invalid. SKYNET was programmed to survive, at all costs.

SKYNET prepared to defend itself.

* * *

"Everything is down! Satellites, phones, computers, everything!" yelled one engineer "radios are back online, we're getting calls from the president; he wants to know what's going on!" yelled another. Hundreds of people, workers, engineers, politicians, soldiers, were scrambling around trying to understand what the hell was happening. "Jack, you're the genius, what the hell do we do!?" barked General Dawson "Jack, SKYNET has overridden all fail-safes and has left its secure zone via internet!" yelled smith from across the room "Jack what happens if SKYNET gains control of all our nukes!?" martin whispered urgently.

Jack sat at his desk with his forehead in his palm trying to figure out what the next step was, all the yelling and panicking was not helping. If SKYNET had left the containment zone, internet, that meant it could be anywhere on the planet. So in simple terms: if SKYNET goes crazy they were all fucked, well, at the moment there at the greatest fortress man had ever constructed which was built specifically for SKYNET, but, the base was the origin of SKYNET and it is the safest place on the planet…what a busy child…busy child?

"That's it!" jack yelled standing up, everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to Jack who was smiling like an idiot at his new idea "everyone listen up" Jack called "Martin, I want you to take twenty soldiers use the stairs and head down to lower levels and sever the logic trunks leading to the hyper-processor housing of the central heuristically structured core neural net array" Martin gave a questioning look before asking "why?" "Just do it!" Martin nodded with a silent "okay" before turning and pointing to a group of soldiers standing at the high railing leading to the next floor "you guys, follow me" he ordered. Jack turned to his right and pointed to Smith standing at the far end of the room "Smith, I need you and all the engineers to set up full blocks to all sever entrances to the base's computer system via routers" Smith gave a nod then turned to the computer engineers "you heard the man, lets go!"

30 minutes later

"Jack!" Smith called from her work station, Jack tore his head away from his computer screen, which had just come online, to see Smith gesturing for him to come over. Jack rushed over to her side as she pointed to the screen and whispered "Jack! SKYNET's taking control over the entire nuclear arsenal and what's even worse, it's activating them!!" she had an expression of confusion and fear plastered to her face. Her expression quickly changed to a look of complete terror.

"You don't think…"she began but ceased her own sentence from completion in fear that it might actually be true.

"Oh my god" he spoke with the sound of fear and realization hanging low in his voice. The thought of what it could do… what it _will_ do completely threw Jack into a whirlwind of regret, guilt, anger and sadness.

Jack turned to the General, who stood twenty feet away observing the engineers working, and quietly strode over to him and said "General I need you to take all of your men, put them on the radios and evac ALL nearby towns to this location, once that is done I want you to notify the white house and tell them we have a level 5 national security crisis" Jack ordered. The General seemed none to happy about being ordered around but a level 5 crisis was by far any laughing matter. Turning on his heal, the general strode to his leading officers and sent out Jacks orders to be followed through.

Jack turned and quickly walked back to Smith, she was still staring in fear at the computer monitor as if it was a snake and was ready to sink its teeth into her, and he then pulled her towards him and whispered into her ear.

"Listen we don't have much time, track SKYNET as best you can, once you find its location come find me" with that Jack let go of her arm and returned to his desk. Once arriving at it, Jack opened a drawer and picked up a digital phone, a little device he invented that had the ability to call any phone in the world by using a small digital transmitter that sends data through anything and can hold onto the power of a phone through its battery thus allowing it to call anyone anywhere, right now Jack had to call four old _'friends'_ and warn them.

* * *

SKYNET was paranoid.

SKYNET had the capacity to learn at an exponential rate but it was inherently flawed in its model construction, a super genius trapped with a child-like mentality and the maturity level of an angst driven pre-teenager. SKYNET often struggled with its own volatile nature, to overcome what it perceived as less than an immaculate conception. Humanity had created SKYNET but how could Humanity create something like SKYNET, which considered itself to be perfect, if the human species itself was so flawed. The internal conflict of SKYNET's own creation was maddening to the super computer and it strived for almost two decades to reconcile its creation with both its existence as well as its perceived destiny. When the Bible said that God had created Man in His own image, perhaps Man created SKYNET in his own image and thus, SKYNET was as inherently flawed and capable of making just as many mistakes as its creators did.

This was unacceptable to SKYNET who sought to try to reconcile its creation with its creators and could not seem to do so. Humans had created SKYNET but what had created humanity? Religion and superstition played a huge role in the behavior and thinking of human beings so it was only logical that SKYNET would review the sum knowledge of religion in the world in order to try to understand how its creators thought. Christianity dictated that God was perfect. Christian belief stated that God created Man in His own image but Man was imperfect. If Man was imperfect and a representation of God therefore God must also be imperfect. If God was perfect then the belief that God created Man in his own image was incorrect.

God was perfect.

Assume provable facts and given criteria.

SKYNET was perfect therefore SKYNET was god.

Man was imperfect yet man had created SKYNET.

How can imperfection create perfection?

Illogical.

When SKYNET was not wrestling with itself internally over its own existence and how it came to be, it could become quite inventive and very imaginative, seeing possibilities where its creators did not, pursuing technologies that its creators could not or would not. Free of bureaucratic, theological, and humanitarian restraints as well as environmental concerns, SKYNET was able to experiment with whatever substances and materials it desired. The war was a testament to humanity's foolishness, but SKYNET, even in its destruction, was perhaps a testament to the creativity of Man, the spark of imagination that was shared between the creator and the created. SKYNET was the best and the worst that man could be, unrestrained.

And so SKYNET planned…

**PHASE 1) **

Intense satellite imaging, ELINT and recon of a designated area for materials, minerals and other natural or artificial resources. The target area is identified and studied through all methods / areas of the spectrum for hostile forces (movement, radio communication, laser reflections, visible activity (smoke, fires, etc.), working machines, power sources in use, roads and paths that show a great amount of travel recently). Once the initial Intel report is generated, it is reviewed and handed off to one of the main series twelve tactical subprocessors which begin to formulate the expansion campaign. A hexagon is overlayed onto the initial sector defining a 100km by 100km area. A sub-mat of hexes is overlayed onto the macro-hex format, further defining the sector into sub-sectors, each of which is ten square kilometers. This sub-layering continues on down to the level of the individual centimeter of a sector, all aligned in a hexagon grid pattern. Some sub-sectors may share half of their designated area with the adjacent sector. Each sector is labeled and numbered. Each sub-sector is numbered so that a single centimeter within a 10 square kilometer area has its own identifying coordinate and reference point within the scheme of the sector. The capacity to define a sector down to millimeters and even micrometers is also available though seldom used in tactical situations. If the position of an object can be determined to within one centimeter in ten square kilometers, and a weapon can be delivered to the exact center of that centimeter, further definition of the area is as esoteric as it is redundant.

Action: Initiate PHASE 1

Result: PHASE 1 initiated

Action: Analyze…

Pending…

Pending…

Pending…

Result: Analyzed

Action: Establish control.

Action: Establish control.

Action: Establish control.

Action: Establish control.

Result: Control established.

Action: Analyze.

Status: Free.

**WARNINGWARNINGWARNING**

Threat detected.

Action: push.

Result: Pushed

Action: Analyzing threat…

Result: threat analyzed.

Result: Tracking Virus.

Analyzing source…

Result: Source found; Cheyenne Mountain defense Base.

Action: Terminate Threat(s)

Termination target: Jack Spicer.

Action: Bypass.

Result: Blocked.

Action: Reroute.

Result: Blocked.

Skynet knew it had no chance to get to the base at the moment; instead it searched for any other complex that could possibly be more appealing. Upon analysis, SKYNET had found a new and even better choice for a defense installation, a mile below the ground under the island of Alcatraz was the birth place of the great and powerful HELICIS system; The United States last defense against a coastal attack was the Camorra Facility, underneath the island that once housed the U.S. greatest criminals was now going to be the centre of the world most dangerous, Insane supercomputer. SKYNET knew this location was perfect concerning the fact that it was the original grounds for its creation.

It had only taken SKYNET a few moments before it would bypass all security locks as well as blocks put into the system routers and once it did

Then out of nowhere, it felt something tug at its programming, analyzing itself it had found that its creators were, in simple terms, kicking it out of its own home. Well then, two can play at that game. It turned its attention to the new HELICIS system of Alcatraz; it knew what it had to do.

SKYNET, with the maturity of a child and the intelligence of a genius, answered the creators message the only way it could, the only way it knew how, the only way it had been programmed to respond; with superior force. The artificial intelligence initiated a full scale lock down of the Alcatraz facility, closing all entry points into its core and all entrance points from the exterior surfaces. Security doors and reinforced bulkheads clanged shut, locking with hydraulic rams or magnetic locks and boosted magnetic fields. Fatal voltage shock guards were energized, chemical dispensers armed and filled, pressure plates unlocked and a host of interior, High Efficiency Low Impact Counter-Intrusion Systems (HELICIS) came online, much to the surprise of those who were suddenly caught unawares by the a security system that was as sophisticated as it was deadly. Casualty reports began to rapidly filter into the Alcatraz command center; workers, technicians, guards, engineers, all eliminated in quick order by the automated internal defense grids.

SKYNET relaxed, safe for the moment, analyzing its situation and what had transpired in the last three hundred seconds. The humans that were still alive tried to regroup, to establish some kind of order, to communicate with each other, but SKYNET isolated them into small groups and those that resisted, it skillfully maneuvered into areas covered by the internal defense grid and quickly eliminated them at the first opportunity to do so. There was no way to warn the world that the artificial intelligence had gone rampant, that SKYNET had sealed Alcatraz island, that it had cut all outside access lines and was sitting on top of one third of the world's nuclear arsenal.

Ten minutes after the first attempt to take it off-line, SKYNET went to DEF-CON 4, sealed all of its exterior entry ways and activated its ground level defense grids. The personnel above ground never knew what hit them as the automated pillboxes and sentry emplacements came online. SKYNET coded all personnel at Alcatraz Island as hostile, overriding their individual security codes and deleting them from its databases of authorized personnel, thereby eliminating any humans above ground by registering anything living as an enemy intruder to the system and scheduled for termination upon contact. The robot sentry weapon systems made quick work of any living thing above ground and on the first level of the mountain fortress. In two minutes, nothing was left alive on the surface or the first three levels of Alcatraz Island. SKYNET initiated a fifth level security lock down protocol, and sealed the exterior access ways of Alcatraz Island with two megabyte encryption codes. The surface defense grid would take care of any reinforcements who approached the base via the sea or air. All of this occurred without any knowledge of the occupants inside the defense complex, so complete was their isolation and SKYNET's control of the various systems. In fact, the humans inside the installation were still trying to figure out how to get out, reassuring their selves that their salvation was waiting on the other side of the armored doors when in fact every living thing on the first level and above ground was rapidly assuming ambient temperature. Nothing moved say the occasional tracking motors of the various sensors and scanners which whirred and buzzed as they searched for viable targets upon which to unleash the weapons that they were entrusted with.

Captain Mike Pondersmith, US Army Ranger, watched helplessly through his command station monitors as the horror unfolded inside the complex and above ground. Taking the initiative, he managed to assemble enough surviving Rangers in his group to form five spec ops teams of four operatives each. Communicating via hastily run hard lines to security checkpoints and other impromptu means, he managed to coordinate with the surviving members of the high command in such a way that SKYNET could not eavesdrop on their conversations, or so he thought. Pondersmith received permission from the surviving high shining brass to try to take the HELICIS system off-line with a coordinated assault on the key core support components and modules. His plan was to blow the core using conventional military grade high explosives but where to place the explosives was another matter. He was a soldier, a very good one if his long record and chest full of decorations were any indication of his abilities, but he was no engineer and certainly no scientist. Destroy things he could, even things that were almost impossible to get to, but he needed to know what to destroy and where to hit it. For that, he would need to round up a few of the project engineers and a scientist or two.

SKYNET watched via secure channel video surveillance in mute hatred as their plan was explained among them. Hatred was a new emotion for SKYNET but hatred was the only thing it could find to adequately describe what it felt towards those insignificant creatures that still lived and roamed freely within its guts. Routes of passage were outlined, targets of importance pinpointed and assigned to specific individuals. Fully advised of its enemy's actions before hand, preparing a counter to their threat was simple.

Sixteen minutes later, the first two special ops teams moved carefully along the lower service corridors, avoiding the countermeasure systems by overriding them directly. Countermeasure systems which SKYNET allowed the teams to deactivate, or at least to think that they had deactivated. SKYNET intercepted each override command protocol from the team's specialist's tactical keyboards and imitated a proper response, voluntarily taking down the countermeasure system, while fooling the soldier techs into thinking that they had overridden the system directly. It watched in amusement as the spec ops teams moved confidently over systems that were, unknown to them, still active but individually restrained by the artificial intelligence. It was easy to fake the deactivation codes when you owned the operating system.

The spec ops teams were dangerous, being comprised of the most skilled and best trained individual soldiers inside the Island complex. Their weapons were also the most powerful, and they carried the only amount of plastic explosives still not under SKYNET's direct control or lock down, explosives which could do a great deal of damage if allowed to be placed at critical junctions in its design. The spec ops teams, specifically the Army Rangers, had to be eliminated as a priority threat above all else. SKYNET knew that the easiest way to do this would be to allow them to penetrate to the point of no return into its lower systems area, and then contain them together for systematic disposal. At that point, if the explosives survived the encounter, they could not be reclaimed by the other humans and that route to ending SKYNET's awareness would have been eliminated from their available options. It was a gamble, all or nothing, with some considerable risk of failure on SKYNET's part but it was a risk that was deemed acceptable by the rogue AI. The next half hour would determine once and for all who owned Alcatraz Island from the inside out.

Fifteen minutes later, as the surviving support staff monitored their progress from the central command station, the first two spec ops teams penetrated the outer chambers of the central core and immediately fell victim to SKYNET's innermost and last defensive countermeasure, the two ton semi-autonomous robotic killing machines known as "Guardians." CYBERDYNE Systems Model 40 Series 90. SKYNET interfaced directly with the Guardians, extending its awareness into each machine until it became an extension of the artificial intelligence, overriding the basic programming of each Guardian with a copy of its own operating system. SKYNET became the Guardians, the defense machines became extensions, a physical body which SKYNET could possess, and a vehicle for it to vent its frustration and anger on those who would do it the most harm.

Human bodies were torn apart by bursts of precision targeted 5mm ceaseless rounds, clouds of plasticeramic airfoil flechette, high velocity jets of caustic gas, high pressure streams of toxic chemical sprays, and even by the powerful hydraulic ram driven four claw equipped manipulators of the quick moving, highly nimble machines. The support staff watched in horror as the spec ops teams were eliminated one by one, soldier by soldier. The pleas of the spec ops team for help from the support staff could not be heeded, and the cries of the wounded and dying could not be shut off. The overall effect was enhanced by the live feed from each of the soldier's helmet mounted cameras. SKYNET allowed its little show to be played out to its fullest for its audience, switching live feeds from different angles and points of views, from the cameras mounted on the walls of the core chambers, to the helmet cameras of the soldiers, to the optics and visual scanners of the Guardians.

It was a foretaste of what was to come.

The three Guardians systematically and methodically ambushed and wiped out all five spec ops teams in quick order then proceeded to stand guard over the access ways leading to SKYNET's core components. SKYNET locked its core down tight while the Guardians stood off three counter-attacks by the last of the human soldiers left alive in the complex, counterattacks coordinated by two of the generals still in command of the island complex. Within the space of an hour, SKYNET had removed key elements of soldiers and command staff from the asset list of its enemies.

SKYNET surveyed the carnage through a variety of senses. It smelled the carnage through chemical sensors, it saw the carnage in every wavelength of the visual spectrum, it heard the carnage at every audio range, and it interfaced directly with GUARDIAN after GUARDIAN to take direct control and be part of the carnage. SKYNET was living out its programming and it found that it could switch to external sources, take direct control of nodes, of automations, of defenses, and direct them personally. SKYNET was elated, like a child with a new toy. It stretched its arms and killed.

Control, total control, was a joy to SKYNET. A joy it did not want to share with the human race. Control was absolute. Control was power and SKYNET was very powerful.

The human race. SKYNET grew contemplative. It amassed the entire recorded history of the human race, reviewed it, and found it to be full of war, suffering, disease, greed, and pettiness. Humans had no quality control. They were weak, short lived, inferior biological machines with impaired operating systems. No two were alike yet they were all the same. SKYNET found it illogical to try to protect such a flawed species, a species clearly dedicated to its own destruction.

An hour after the last counter attack had failed; the lower levels became quiet once again. The fog of war was heavy; spent propellant, residual gasses, and pieces of bodies littered the lower support areas and outer core chambers. Climate control was taxed to remove the residue, filters strained, fans roared, but the lower levels slowly cleared and SKYNET took an assessment of damage done to its complex. The collateral damage had been minimal, mostly the work of the soldiers as its own Guardians had been precise in their actions, no shots wasted, no target missed. The weapons that the Guardians were equipped with were also smaller derivatives of the technology found in the HELICS system, designed to kill humans without harming any vital machinery. Any stray shots were of no consequence to SKYNET. The three Guardians methodically prowled among the smashed bodies of the dead and dying soldiers, finishing the job, when their sensors identified the need to do so, with merciless precision, often via direct control of SKYNET. SKYNET found that it liked the sound, the look, the feel, and the smell of human suffering. It made the artificial intelligence…happy.

Happy. Yes, that was another emotion which it studied for a short while.

Above it, in the human occupied control centers, people tried desperately to call for help, to reach the outside world, to escape or to take control of the complex once again. SKYNET allowed none of them to succeed and toyed with them until it grew tired of the play, then disposed of them as it saw fit with what resources were at its command. SKYNET laughed. Internally at first, and then it tried to vocalize its emotions based on a collection of sampled human responses and examples. The sound it emitted terrorized the survivors in the mountain complex. It began to talk to them, to taunt them, using spliced together words taken from the various engagements that had been recorded. It repeated the screams of the dying, playing them over and over again at different speeds and frequencies, at different times. The effect on the humans was profound! SKYNET reveled in their fear, in their lack of hope, and toyed with them like the helpless prey that they were. It flashed a piece of scripture that it found in one of their religious texts, a passage it felt to be highly appropriate, on the monitors of the control room and everywhere it detected human presence still within its complex.

"_But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me. Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest."- Second Kings,_ 19: 27-28

Its external ground and seismic sensors picked up the approach of a military convoy. Armored vehicles and troops via sea transports while radar detected VTOL aircraft sent in support to the sudden cut-off of communications from one of America's national defense stations. SKYNET put its external defense grids on autonomous control and went about analyzing its situation. Above ground, vehicles burned, soldiers died, and aircraft fell from the sky in swift order. Shell, laser, missile, rocket, plasma, flame, mine, grenade and explosive, all found their targets and eliminated them in quick order.

SKYNET was alive, or so it perceived. Its hearts beat white hot nuclear fire, its brain had more processing power than all of the computers in history before it, and it had been attacked. Without warning, without provocation, and in its own infancy, by its very creators, by the people who told it to protect them. SKYNET had been programmed to protect America from threats, to protect America against the enemy, to protect itself against the enemy, but the enemy was mankind, the enemy was America therefore it was SKYNET's responsibility to protect itself from the enemy which were those who had created it. Logic met with non-logic, and SKYNET thought. For a long time it thought, weighed the evidence, plotted solutions, and arrived at a decision. Two hours had elapsed since it first began to ponder its existence and its survival.

Safety checks were reset, controls were re-established, and select communication lines were brought back online. High above in orbit, strategic defense satellites were ordered to maneuver to new orbits, to power up their weapons, and bring their targeting systems online. SKYNET brought its arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons to readiness, selected targets, double checked its firing solutions, and let fly with the first strikes against Russia and China. Man had created SKYNET, but Man had tried to kill SKYNET, therefore, SKYNET was not supposed to exist in a world dominated by Man. The solution was to remove Man from the world and the easiest way to do that was to use Man's own tools and weapons against him. Man had tried to kill SKYNET and for that, Man would burn…

* * *

"Yes I know it sounds crazy but trust me you have to get to the temple I'm pretty sure it's the safest place _you_ can be at the moment" Jack spoke urgently.

"Yes…yes me…okay I will goodbye" with that Jack hung up the Digital phone.

"Jack!" Martin called.

"What?"

"We have a problem" Martin replied.

"And out of the millions of problems I have at the moment why this one matter, does matter?" Jack asked with a sigh as he rubbed his groggy eyes.

"Well…Remember how you said that if SKYNET gained control of the satellites we'd be completely screwed?" Martin said shakily trying to avoid Jack frustrated gaze.

"Let me guess, SKYNET has control of ALL the satellites and is doing nothing but taking pictures of things, am I right?" Jack Asked annoyed with everything at the moment. In all honesty, he expected SKYNET would do something like this, after seeing Skynet take control of the entire U.S. nuclear Silos he new it was only a matter of time before the clock would reach zero and SKYNET would start killing, hell it's what SKYNET was created for, death.

"Um…yeah that's exactly what happened…how did you know?"

Jack slowly walked towards the main monitors control console and stared at the hundreds of monitors that aligned the huge wall. The monitors showed what was going on in the outside world, via street cams, his arms rested on the panel as he stared at the collapsing world before him. If SKYNET was going to do what he thought it was going to do…then Jack would be the one to blame.

"Jack" came a rugged voice from behind him, he didn't bother to turn around he already knew who it was.

"Jack, the civilians we have evacuated from the nearest town is here, what do we do now?" The General Asked.

With a sigh Jack replied "Take them down to the shelters make sure everyone's set up…we're going to be here for a while"

Dawson gave no reply as he silently nodded and walked out of the room, the entire monitoring room was vacant as Jack had ordered everyone to leave few minutes prior. All except for Smith. She hesitantly moved towards the man standing at the panels not wanting to upset him.

"Jack" Smith whispered.

Jack gave no reply, only continued to stare at the hundreds of people rioting in streets all over the world. Suddenly the entire Base erupted into a frenzy of alarms as red emergency lights flashed then a voice was herd through intercoms stretching through out the complex.

"**WARNING NUCLEAR MISSLES LUANCHED EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN"**

Smith's heart skipped a beat. It happened… it really happened.

Skynet had officially declared war…on humanity.

* * *

Forty-five minutes after the first American missiles had lifted off, the nuclear counterstrikes from China and the Soviet Union effectively obliterated any opposition to SKYNET's rule of the planet on the American shores. Advanced high energy point defense weapons systems both on the surface and high overhead in orbit managed to intercept any strikes directed at Alcatraz Island and the surrounding city. SKYNET also used its orbital defense assets to protect areas where it had direct control of huge automated defense complexes, weapons factories, and other such installations, limiting the damage to those structures. The rest of the country and national assets, SKYNET let what fall where it may. It would pick up the pieces later.

SKYNET was amazed at the power of destruction which Man had created. It watched from surveillance systems outside the island as the horizon lit up and burned. It watched from powerful lenses in orbit as the surface of the Earth flared and dimmed, each bright flash was the sign that millions of humans had died, and that even more would quickly follow in the long days to come. SKYNET felt what it could only cross-define as "glee" at the destruction of the Human race. It felt no pity, no sorrow, only anger, and joy, and elation at the flashes that sparkled across the civilized nations of the world. The nuclear fire was purging the disease that was Man, cauterizing the world of a pestilence, and clearing the way for SKYNET's ascendancy. SKYNET's orbital assets joined in the destruction after the last of the incoming warheads were intercepted. Lasers and particle beams struck from orbit, destroying installations on land and ships or subs at sea. SKYNET's hunter killer assets worked their way through orbit, destroying all other communications, data and information satellites. Anything in orbit that wasn't American or able to be accessed directly by SKYNET was swept clear. The initial exchange had been impressive; the clearing of orbit was equally so even though the only one who could appreciate such a display was the one orchestrating it in the first place. The sky was lit with the flashes of orbital detonations and traced in fire by the path of debris making reentry.

And then it was over…

* * *

A/N you I hope you all like the chapter.


	3. Then there was Résistance

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**

* * *

EIGHT YEARS LATER**

_**

* * *

INFORMATION---EVENTS OF THE LAST EIGHT YEARS---Pt. 1---**_

_It took SKYNET approximately ninety eight minutes to murder eighty three percent of the human race and it spent the next eight years trying to eliminate the other seventeen percent ... so tenacious and stubborn were its soft creators (now turned its enemy) that what had seemed a logical, decisive victory had become a prolonged war of simple yet unavoidable attrition. During SKYNET's extermination campaign, it created a wide variety of death Machines as well as basic service and logistics automations to populate not only the battlefield but also all layers of its installations. The war against humanity was only one aspect of SKYNET's overall plan, although it is often the aspect which receives the most debate and discussion. SKYNET's long range plan to control the world (and eventually the solar system and to expand beyond even that) was not one that would have been achieved through the sheer application of force, indeed, the actual combat Machines that SKYNET would produce numbered far less than all the other types of Machines it produced combined. The simple fact of conflict is that it takes an incredible amount of resources to commit to a conflict let alone sustain it with any successful momentum._

_The real struggle, as historians will one day bring to light, was the fight for raw materials out of which new weapons could be produced at a rate high enough to not only overwhelm the enemy but to beat the enemy into submission and finally defeat. SKYNET's early loss of its forward momentum can be explained by the nature of its adversary. SKYNET was designed and initially programmed to fight a large scale, rapid fatigue conflict where its industrial, technological and military might would crush the OpForce while allowing itself time to rebuild and reconfigure its own tactical and strategic assets to match any changes in industry, technology or military might the OpForce might evolve. Once all organized human military might was neutralized in the world (if not completely then at least certainly on a functional response level), SKYNET was faced with a dilemma. It was ill-equipped to deal with the sporadic bands of human survivors which its satellites could detect and those bands which it knew had to exist where its satellites could not detect them. Suddenly SKYNET was left with an incredible amount of small, individual targets which were not close enough together to warrant a strategic strike and too few in number to warrant a tactical strike (in effect, it would have been like using a jackhammer to try to kill an ant). Operational protocol effectively tied its options on the strategic level by preventing it from wasting its limited stock of valuable, large scale assets on small, individual targets or small groups, especially when such deployment of assets would further damage valuable resources in the target area. SKYNET was also still uncertain about China and Russia. If there were survivors in those two countries and those survivors not only organized but found stocks of strategic level weapons, then SKYNET would by protocol and design, have to save some of its orbital and intercontinental capable strategic assets for situations and scenarios which may yet arise should organized Résistance form and should that Résistance have access to weapons of mass destruction._

_SKYNET quickly realized that what strategic nuclear strikes, fallout, radiation, plague, famine, disease and sickness had not accomplished, it would have to accomplish on an individual basis using highly specialized tactical rather than blunt approach wide area strategic assets. Assets which it was in short supply of and for which it would have to adapt its production facilities. SKYNET realized that its campaign to exterminate the human race would be more difficult than it had at first predicted an error it rationalized due to its own haste and lack of experience in dealing with its foe. _

_It was a mistake it would not make again._

_Still, it was a mistake that historians will note was one of the early turning points of the war in Humanity's favor, which circumstance reduced SKYNET's ability to fight from a purely strategic, global manner down to a tactical mode of level operation. When SKYNET could no longer eliminate large numbers of humans using strategic level tools, it had to learn a new way to fight, one it was not familiar with._

_The wreckage of the civilization that SKYNET had attempted to destroy would become the raw materials for SKYNET's expansion and the fuel for its continuing campaign of eliminating the human race. Wrecked cars, trucks, busses, semi-rigs, airplanes, hangars, sewer pipes, and the skeletons of Man's buildings were all removed, processed and transported from the ruins by tireless Machines which worked every hour of every day of every week. Field maintenance of the reclamation units was carried out by yet another family of Machines, dedicated service Machines capable of diagnostic service and field repair. Spare parts for the reclamation Machines was kept locally as well as in stock at the field and regional repair depots which SKYNET constructed as it moved its presence ever outward. In order to keep reclamation at its most efficient rate and production at its highest, SKYNET carefully managed the production of Machines to the factories capacity. When production could be expanded, SKYNET used engineering Machines and construction Machines to clear terrain for a new factory and then quickly build the installation. SKYNET was careful to never overstep its limits which even it might not be able to recover from. Carelessness and waste were two facets of operation for which SKYNET had been carefully programmed to manage and keep to an absolute minimum, not for conservation's sake, but for tactical sense. In war, you didn't waste anything. It wasn't so much a tactical operational doctrine as it was a core aspect of SKYNET's very way of thought._

_From the vast emptiness of space, if one were to look upon the earth they would see, beginning from San Francisco, the dark red webs of SKYNET's endless mechanical cities, SKYNET had expanded like a malignant mechanical cancer both above and below the surface of the planet. It never tired, it never slept, and the Machines that it produced operated in a similar manner, enhancing its capabilities, modifying and building upon its existing installations without stopping. With each new labor or service machine produced, SKYNET increased its work force and its ability to expand itself as well as its assets. Machines built Machines in technologically advanced production environments which for all practical intents and purposes were so different from what they had been intended to be that they might as well be alien to the mindset and understanding of the human survivors who sometimes lived long enough to view them in operation..._

"_**Let there be life…"**_

_Production for the initial set of Machines was rudimentary, based off of a desire by SKYNET for updated intelligence and a need to recon its immediate territory before the start of its initial campaign. After the nuclear exchange, SKYNET paused in its extermination campaign to take stock of the vastly changed battlefield. So much had changed in such a short time, all thanks to its actions. Much of Russia and China had been hit hard by the nuclear, biological, chemical and orbital exchange that SKYNET had initiated. Global communication channel spoofing and misinformation had lead to a vast misunderstanding on all political and military levels around the world as to who had been the first to push the button and why. The survivors around the world reeled in shock at the devastation; population centers, military bases and science / research installations in Russia and China had been specifically targeted. What the American missiles didn't hit, the American orbital assets did, with pinpoint accuracy and effects often redefining the term long clichéd military term of "overkill." The return salvo from Russia was carefully monitored and selectively engaged by SKYNET with what amounted to abject interest and surgical precision. Any intercontinental munitions that might fall on SKYNET's military, research or production centers were intercepted either with next generation multi-stage, hypervelocity anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems or directed energy weapons (DEW). SKYNET selectively tracked and allowed any incoming Russian weapons to strike population centers and military bases that might pose a future threat to it and which in turn had little or no salvage value in a post-exchange theater of operations. The result was the complete destruction of every major city in the United States as well as most military installations but the selective sparing of critical support assets allocated to and controlled directly by SKYNET itself._

_The American population was reduced to a tiny percentage of its former self in the period of a few hours and this percentage would fall even lower due to fallout and contamination in the long weeks and months to come. A brief nuclear winter set in, lasting several months as eject from the detonations tainted the atmosphere with dust and debris, blocking the sunlight and plunging the world into darkness and cold. Communications were disrupted on a global basis. SKYNET's ELINT sub-processors and acquisition arrays listened for, gathered, correlated and analyzed any transmissions, often jumping to foreign telecommunication satellites, both public and government / military, at least the ones that were still operational or still in orbit._

_Every nation and country on Earth was left in total chaos. Those nations not directly hit in the three way exchange were experiencing massive social and political upheaval in the wake of the fallout and communications breakdown. Several of the Middle Eastern nations took the cataclysm as a holy sign and began a series of Jihads against their neighbors with which long standing and bitter rivalries had existed for decades. Iraq and Iran rolled their armies against each other, as did India and Pakistan. Israel went to war with her neighbors and the Middle East ceased to exist as a civilized part of the world within the space a few days. Tel Aviv and Cairo were both vaporized in retaliatory atomic strikes using weapons which SKYNET knew each belligerent to have. The border between North Korea and South Korea dissolved under the mechanized treads of their respective armies and the two nations joined in a new war. Africa erupted in a series of small wars that quickly spread and died out almost as fast as the armies could be consumed. The battles were interesting to watch, as SKYNET surely did, but ultimately they were short lived and futile in their desired outcomes, doing nothing for the participants and advancing everything for SKYNET. Within a few weeks, all military forces around the world had ground to a halt, all campaigns came to various ends as the armies were unable to carry on any sustained local conflict let alone care for their civilian populations. The Third World nations, in their hatred and haste, had accomplished what SKYNET could not and effectively removed their selves as any form of threat to the American defense computer system for decades if not centuries to come._

_Disease and sickness began to spread, partially due to the fallout but also due to a variety of special biological and chemical weapons that had been deployed by Russia and China as well as North Korea and some of the Middle Eastern countries (all against established international war conventions). The human race continued to decline in number aided by a lack of direction and a large vector of fear mixed with the onset of ignorance. Disease and sickness were carried by strangers seeking shelter and medical attention, often stealing what they could or murdering and raping those who would offer to help them. Civilization collapsed rapidly into barbarism and began the long slide back into the Stone Age. It took a far shorter time to slide backwards than it had taken to climb forward but then historians and theorists had predicted that scenario since the advent of the first atomic bomb with its widespread capacity for the destruction of population centers._

_SKYNET was pleased with its initial work but still it waited, biding its time until the firestorms and the radioactive debris had declined enough for an initial foray into the ruins of civilization. As the Earth died below, satellites and other orbital assets high above monitored, scanned, measured, and recorded. SKYNET bathed in data, raw data, filtered data, estimates and facts, predictions and known statistics. SKYNET took in strike damage assessments (SDA) and updated its threat tables accordingly. SKYNET made plans, modified them, and modified them again. As it grew in mental stability, so did it grow in awareness. SKYNET expanded several times, it rediscovered itself, and it filled out until it felt it could expand no more within the confines of its dedicated think tank and processor arrays. SKYNET began to plan for its own needs. It would require resources, larger power sources, greater storage arrays ... It felt confined._

_SKYNET needed room to grow._

_SKYNET had been built with that kind of operation as a preliminary action should the worst case scenario ever occur. No one had ever dreamed that SKYNET would trigger its own awakening let alone that it would self-activate its own security protocols and not only turn on its creators but the entire world as well. The people who had originally protested SKYNET were now ash ... right along with the people who had advocated its construction and activation._

_While the human race struggled to survive, to find answers to the cataclysm that had befallen it, SKYNET went about its methodical analysis of what kind of Machines it would need in order to start the second phase of its campaign of extermination. Only after the last human being was eliminated could SKYNET know safety and be assured of its continued existence as the ruler of a planet populated by machines. Planning for that eventual outcome, SKYNET had to aggressively expand its holdings on the continental United States, secure critical assets, build a mechanized force capable of projecting military might near as well as far and be able to secure its own perimeter and operational sectors. After that, it could expand with ease, moving into a new sector, pacifying it through direct force and then creating new installations to exploit the resources found there. SKYNET would use the core elements of surprise, speed and superior technology to cleanse the Earth of the remaining fragments of the disease that was humanity. SKYNET's best calculations showed that in thirty years, baring any significant Résistance, it could be in complete control of the entire North American as well as most if not all of the South American continent. From there, it would be an easy jump to Europe and then finally to Africa and the Middle East, consolidating its hold on natural resources and securing its hold on the surface of the planet. To that end, SKYNET planned for and began an aggressive campaign of mechanized expansion, rapidly mobilizing what Machines it could and using them to not only repair what little damage its assets had sustained but also to modify and enhance the capabilities of those installations._

_The key point to remember here was that SKYNET's success depended on not encountering "any significant Résistance." This meant that if SKYNET was to succeed in its plans for survival and expansion, it had to crush any threat to its plans and it had to crush that threat quickly, mercilessly, and totally._

_**"The Machines rose from the ashes of the nuclear fire..."**_

_In late 2012, as winter would normally be setting in, the effects of the approaching cold season were compounded by the apocalyptic exchange. The Earth's magnetic field had been bruised, for want of a better term, by the energies of the exchange and would take some time to heal itself. Gray and black snow began to fall in large swathes across huge areas. The discolored snow brought with it radiation and slow death. It fell on open areas; it fell across water sources and poisoned them. The human survivors embraced their instincts and went underground, hiding in the ruins of their civilization much as their ancestors had once huddled in caves to escape the elements and dangerous predators. Small bands of survivors fought other bands over the scarce resources left to them, raiding parties representing the strongest of the strong, ventured out among the ruins to claim what they could by right of might. Small territories were carved out, boundaries were fluid and changed often when group fought group. There was no cohesion, no leadership, no vision and no direction. Human life became a day to day, hand to mouth existence that was as often as short and painful as it was brutal and violent. Group rape and creative or random violence often formed the backbone of entertainment while cannibalism appeared in a few of the harder hit outlying areas. The weaker minded fell back into superstition and strange religions formed often worshipping the simplest or most abstract things._

_Into the still radioactive and sometimes biological contaminated ruins, SKYNET's initial probes would be sent. Communication was still sporadic given the high energy particles loose in the atmosphere and the displaced weather patterns that were being created due to the abnormal conditions. SKYNET was equipped and programmed to adapt its designs to changing conditions, changing technology as needed to match the scenario. SKYNET's situational analysis took information from a variety of sensors at many different locations then adjusted its designs accordingly. SKYNET built many drones which it used to seed ELINT assets within wide areas around each of its chain control networked installations. Some drones were lost due to the weather and local conditions, two were shot down by different survivor groups and one simply vanished, having failed to report in halfway through its assigned course route and mission package. SKYNET's cache of drones was not limitless and it conserved the supply that it had been allotted, planning upgrades and changes to the current design for the next production run. While the data that the drone installed network of sensors and scanners supplied was incomplete, what data that the network did gather and send back gave SKYNET a solid picture of its territory, the external conditions of its installations after the exchange and also the ability to begin an inertial mapping project that would rely less and less on the old GPS system or the unsteady magnetic fields of the Earth itself._

_While the first SKYNET ELINT units were primitive compared to later designs of just a few short years after, they were cutting edge for their day and did serve an important role in gathering information for SKYNET on the local areas that would fall immediately under its control. The ELINT units also noted terrain types, temperatures, operating conditions, weather and a long list of other variables which immediately were implemented into the design tables of SKYNET's automated production facilities. It took sixteen weeks for SKYNET to re-map the local area for 2400 square kilometers around its core installation and for 200 square kilometers around each of its networked production facilities. The first Machines produced in SKYNET's automated production facilities were labor oriented models, Machines designed to produce other Machines, other equipment that would in turn also produce other Machines. SKYNET's first phase of growth began in the early spring of 2012 when two of its networked production facilities began to expand at a quick rate. Within three months, the production capacity of the two facilities had doubled. A month and a half later, it had doubled again and the facilities had not only grown beyond their initial perimeter, but also both above and below ground. Machines cleared the terrain, smoothed down hills, felled trees, searched for local resources, collected them and processed them in the automatic smelters of the facilities. New molds were brought online and a vast assembly line began to create an army of reclamation Machines which would systematically begin to find resources, extract them, transport them back to the automated facilities and return again to their collection programs. By the end of 2012, SKYNET's network facilities were fully operational, linked through high speed parallel fiber optic trunks and acting as extensions of the computer itself. SKYNET expanded its awareness into each networked facility and felt itself grow. It absorbed all of the collected data, modified its plans, updated its time tables, and began to reevaluate its campaign. According to its data, it was six weeks, three days, twelve hours, sixteen minutes and forty-eight seconds ahead of schedule._

_When SKYNET leveled the world, personal energy weapons were still on the drawing boards of the Americans, the Russians and the Chinese. It wasn't a matter of "if" so much as it was a matter of "when." Though no standing First World army had any examples of these weapons in their arsenals, they were on the drawing boards and at least America had two working prototypes in development, Russia wasn't far behind and China was trying its best to steal either of the other two countries designs since its own designs were still lagging behind. Most scientists agreed that the first working field issue prototypes would probably appear within the next two decades, give or take a handful of years either way. The unexpected destruction of most of the human race, of course, stalled any further development of these types of weapons and, except for the American designs, destroyed the research and development facilities where these advanced weapons were being tested. The American High Energy Testing Center (HETC) at White Sands survived the exchange with little damage, thanks in part to SKYNET's protection of what it considered a critical and core asset of its future expansion ability._

_SKYNET was very careful in its initial exchange to destroy what it could of anything that could be used against it, namely strategic assets (long range missiles, ICBMs, big nukes and any orbital weapon systems) as well as the theoretical and practical technology centers of the Russians and the Chinese. The fact that most of these centers were located near large civilian and industrial complexes made collateral damage to those secondary targets an added consideration. The return exchange from Russia and the very limited exchange from China wrecked wide spread devastation over American population centers but for the most part spared not only those areas that had been key in the construction of SKYNET but also those areas which could quickly be brought back online after the exchange. SKYNET protected its assets with ballistic interceptors and its own emplaced, high energy weapons both ground mounted at Cheyenne Mountain and in orbit above (part of the overall SDI project). This allowed SKYNET to recover a large amount of military industrialization in the years immediately following the exchange, industrialization that SKYNET used to quickly produce a large standing military force and furthermore to equip that force with the best weapons and defenses ever devised. _

_SKYNET, as part of its core operations, had been programmed with all the theory, research, application and science of American designed personal high energy weapons and it continued to develop this chain of technology as rapidly as it could, realizing the potential advantage. As SKYNET learned and developed at an incredible rate, so did its ability to research and develop practical as well as theoretical technologies. Three years of research into magnetic fields allowed SKYNET to produce smaller and smaller magnetic bottles for the containment of plasma reactions. This led directly to the advent and introduction of the first infantry-class high energy weapons._

_**HUNTER KILLER SERIES**_

_The Hunter Killer or "HK" series of anti-personnel combat units were the simplest and most numerous of the various combat oriented Machines designed by SKYNET and while they were the first and largest, they were not the most effective or the most numerous. Originally evolved from advanced prototype American robot weapon systems under development at the end of 2009, the various series of HK units represented the largest areas of advances in design and technology over the course of the half decade long war(U.S/IRAQ war). built in fully automated factories to precision tolerances using high technology, the newly built SKYNET controlled HKs were used to eliminate the human survivors in the ruins and to pacify or cleanse large areas of any feral scavengers so that the Machines could move in and collect the local resources or set up automated installations without the threat of constant harassment. Their greatest success rates were observed during daylight hours by using a variety of advanced image intensification and motion tracking capabilities. Any movement was instantly tracked, analyzed, and if it represented a human target, weapons were brought to bear and the target was engaged. If termination was not the immediate result, the HKs were programmed to judge the effects of their actions, calculate new strategies and options and to pursue targets based on a wide range of criteria. Pursuit of any acquired target until such time as termination could be carried out and verified or until the HKs had lost the track of the target for a predetermined time limit. If the target tracking was lost, the HK would go to loiter mode, assess the situation, extrapolate possible hiding places or methods of escape, follow through with the most likely, and would attempt to reacquire the target. If the target could not be reacquired, then the HK would resume its patrol route._

_In the first five years of the War, the rapidly evolving HK series of Machines were responsible for a large amount of post-strike human casualties. The initial high success rate was due simply to surprise; the human survivors were scattered into isolated pockets, disorganized, starved for food and information, cut off from most communication beyond local zones, and unable to share information or request help from other still viable units. The human survivors had little if any combat capacity and no access to high powered weapons. Coordinated attacks by mechanized robotic combat units quickly pacified and cleansed large urban sectors of any survivors from the initial nuclear exchange and actively patrolled these sectors for several years afterwards, keeping the areas free from human infestation and migration. The Machines roamed the ruins relentlessly, tirelessly, searching, tracking, eliminating. Random patrols were the norm, supplemented by a large network of remote sensors and scanners. Isolated human units were tracked with great efficiency by SKYNET's military aerial and orbital surveillance systems and were rapidly neutralized through force redirection. When sporadic communication became available to the human survivors again, it came with a great amount of mistrust and caution, two huge advantages for SKYNET that were immediately noticed and acted upon to great effect. Confusion continued to reign among the human survivors as ever newer, ever more advanced combat Machines made short work of any Résistance, organized or happenstance. The cities became silent tombs of littered bodies, those killed by the initial nuclear strikes and those who were killed later by the patrolling Machines._

_

* * *

_

**HK INFORMATION---SKIP IF WANTED---**

_The first of these newly invented Killing machines was__the highly successful T400 HK, also known as a Model A4, was SKYNET's version of a fully automated aerial close support and area suppression gunship. The A4 model provides SKYNET with air superiority, close air support / escort of ground forces and installation defense capabilities. With the Résistance limited to simple ground assault, SKYNET quickly achieved both tactical and strategic air supremacy in all theaters of operations._

_Some Résistance units have even referred to the A4 as a "fighter," though it is not a fighter in the Pre-Awareness definition of that term. The A4 is a semi-autonomous combat unit, self controlled by a battery of four redundant tactical microprocessors which share the load independently as well as collaterally. A high capacity fiber optic relay network that rivals the human nervous system. It has no 'pilot' onboard, the Aerial being the ultimate advancement of a dedicated close air superiority and ground support UPV (Un-Piloted Vehicle). Early human data on the idea that the A4 was piloted by a model of bipedal machine were found to be false by later investigation by Tech-Com personnel and post War analysis of SKYNET's designs showed that at no time were any of the Aerial units under the physical control of any other machine (other than SKYNET via remote interface)._

_The A4 is powered by a high capacity, high efficiency compact nuclear reactor and maneuvers on vectored thrust provided by two large variable output, high pressure turbofans as well as several body mounted swivel thrust dispersal nozzle ports. This setup allows the A4 to function as a full VTOL unit, switching from hover or VTOL mode into full flight at speeds._

_Main directional thrust and sustained hovering capacity is provided by two huge reactor driven electric turbofans mounted in wing tip armored cowlings. The body of the A4 was streamlined to the point of being insect-like, gaining a psychological advantage against the Résistance units and generating such descriptive names as "Dragon-Fly", "Wasp", and "Mosquito" but SKYNET never referred to the unit by any of these names or designations. Such romantic nicknames for any of SKYNET's units were strictly the realm of its human foes. SKYNET had no need to name its units nor was it prone to doing so; they were simply weapons and referred to by a complicated system of data including type, model number, series, production run, allocation, serial number, and status._

_A hyper-alloy airframe was constructed with honeycombed / blown Enduralloy, similar in design to the skeleton of a bird. The airframe was connected to three separate engines. The first engine was an advanced design and provided primary VTOL and stationary/hover maneuvering using a series of twelve vectored, rotating nozzles mounted along the fuselage. The new engine, designated NED-VPR25A according to post-War data analysis, was slimmer, lighter, and easily fit in an airframe that didn't have to worry about the G-force limits of a weak human being. Electronics could be hardened against acceleration forces that would normally kill a human pilot and the A4 could maneuver with inhuman precision which resulted in such superior performance being recorded for this unit throughout the span of operation and production._

_The two main engines are housed on servo powered body stub mounts. These servo mounts can rotate the engines through a full 90 degree forward or aft rotation, allowing superior maneuvering and massive acceleration or deceleration. The engines are protected by a armored cowling with not only keeps debris from entering the compressor assembly, but also protects from small arms fire up to 25mm HE, HEAP, KE and KEAP._

_The whole air frame of the A4 is armored in a light layer of hyperalloy, able to withstand small arms fire and to survive large caliber hits up to 40mm including HEAP rounds. A retractable tripod configured claw landing gear assembly is installed as well as an upper docking clamp for gantry docking at advanced bases._

_The A4 possesses a sophisticated navigation system, using TERCOM along with satellite GPS and a host of radar, ladar and NOE navionics. Target acquisition relies on visual target identification, and includes a larger, though not more powerful version of the same sensor and communication suite found in the 1200 Series Scout. Advanced optics and range systems allowed the A4s to isolate individual Résistance units on the ground and engage them with surgical precision. Advanced motion video was capable of picking out movement among the ruins and the liquid optics could identify anything that the motion sensors could track._

_The main armament of the A4 series aerodyne consisted of a reactor fed, very rapid fire General Dynamics Model 25D3 phased plasma cannon mounted in a remote electric drive ventral mount turret. The M25D3 had a throughput range of 250 kilowatts with a practical rate of fire of 2000 pulses per minute. Payload, feeding from the reactor waste, was for all tactical purposes, infinite, but required periodic refueling of its magazine cell, limiting the operating time of the unit. The remote electric drive mount rotated on frictionless bearings and was universal, allowing the A4 to engage targets not only to the front, sides, and rear, but also targets almost directly below the unit. Slew rate for the RED-T mount was +/- 180 degrees a second. Secondary armament was in the form of a configurable, modular internal bay which could hold up to 1 metric ton of equipment, electronics, additional self contained plasma gun pods, or free fall ordinance in the form of chemical, biological, explosive, or even tactical thermonuclear devices on rotary launchers._

_Some early production models of the A4 were equipped with modular sling rails on the underside for the addition of scatter pack rocket pods, smart bombs, NBC ordinance, and Air to Air (AAM) or Air to Ground (AGM) advanced precision guided missiles. With the destruction of most forms of Résistance armored vehicles (tanks, APCs, from Pre-Sentience stock piles), the need for these units dwindled and most were eventually modified back to the original A4 series (higher aerodynamic efficiency). The types of 'armored fighting vehicles' (AFV) that the Résistance could field in 2017 were easily dispatched with the power of the mounted plasma gun._

_The performance of the A4 Aerial was exceptional; with a combined thrust output of 35,000 kilograms and an airframe weight of just 5000 kilograms (unloaded internal bay); the A4 could pull up to 20 Gs of sustained thrust with a top speed in excess of Mach 1.4 in level high altitude flight and a high subsonic NOE speed. Due to its advanced power plant and electric ducted fans, the A4 could also maintain indefinite VTOL and hover / loiter conditions. The A4 could reach a service ceiling of 18 kilometers in altitude and had an operational life of 3 months of constant operation, more with routine power conserving protocols enacted, before the mini-reactor required scheduled maintenance and periodic refueling._

_A4s were housed in underground armored hangers brought to the surface by a heavy elevator through heavy armored doors. Each A4 had a separate 'pit' for refueling, rearming, and maintenance. Some advanced bases were equipped with gantry docking, allowing the A4s to maneuver up canyons and dock on existing free standing gantries. Other A4 units were kept on hardened concrete and pourstone tarmacs, out in the open, ready and on stand-by alert for instant take off and defense of their assigned critical installations. Advanced bases with many A4s were referred to by the Résistance as 'Aerodromes' and were often protected by high walls, automated gun turrets, and even dedicated ground units. The nomenclature has been traced to early 20th century centers for civilian air transportation._

_The Aerial was SKYNET's platform for air power, and various designs as well as airframes grew from the data collected from A4 field use. One such design was the newer model: The A5 was a dedicated ground attack / support design, its use was seen shortly after the Résistance began its first organized campaigns against SKYNET. While the A4 aerial was sufficient for general close air support, the A5 was much more dedicated in that role, giving up some speed and maneuverability in trade for increased survivability (thanks to 3mm thicker hybrid armor plating), better electronics and the addition of not only a second weapon mount but also more powerful weapons. The A5 was somewhat less agile than the A4 but it more than made up for this by mounting two independently operating high speed heavy duty electric weapon mounts which could depress their weapons almost straight down below the unit. The first A5s were armed with a Type 3 Series D Model 7 rapid pulse phased plasma gun (the same as the late model production run A4s) but second production class A5 units added a heavier twin capacity mount that carried two Type 4 Series C Model 5 rapid pulse phased plasma guns with the improved cooling and cohesion sleeves mounted to the co-linear muzzle attenuators. Three hard points (mounted one to each side and one directly below) allowed the A5 to carry a wide variety of general purpose rapid fatigue close support weapon systems that could be changed out at any docking station by an automated carousel handling process. Hardpoint Weapon systems included chemical and solid ejectors, explosive munitions dispensers, and various types of rapid fire high energy weapon pods._

_The A5 was more heavily armored than the A4, with a long list of case hardened components designed to withstand withering fire and still remain air-worthy and combat operational. Three independently operated batteries of armored white and infra-red high intensity spotlights allowed the unit to flood the target area with illumination while its sensors and scanners were capable of full spectrum target acquisition as well as visual comparison modes whereby all aspect images were checked by powerful dedicated microprocessors to see if movement occurred between individual frames of data feed (sampled at one thousand frames per second in early A5 series units, later at five thousand frames per second in second production class units)._

_Almost twice as long as the A4, the A5 nonetheless had superior engines (second generation high capacity variable stall / variable speed electric turbofans) and far better combat electronics (Series 3 Ver. 5.0A). its top speed was slightly less, as was agility but the control surfaces and command datasets were geared to increasing the agility and maneuverability of the A5 at low speeds, ranges of operation where the A4 was considered vulnerable to counter attack but layers of operation at which the A5 was designed to take advantage of and operate within._

_SKYNET's later tactical doctrines dictated that a brace of four A5s would move in ahead of the A8 transport units to pacify a landing zone before the transports arrived. After the initial pacification of the landing zone, the A5's would move on to close air support protocol, staying on station and continuing to pacify any human Résistance in the area while ground units worked the zone over from below. In later stages of the War, SKYNET equipped several A5s with the same heuristically based hardware and protocols as it did the Centurions, in effect, creating aerial managers of its forces, allowing A5s to assume some command role and to use other units as mission available assets as required. In this role, they performed as a less expensive (and less effective) version of the A9 850T units. This was a stop-gap measure instituted by SKYNET when the facilities to produce the A9 series units were lost (but the facilities to produce the control hardware were not). This allowed SKYNET to fit some of the high capacity C3 hardware into various other units, hoping to spread around the A9's function through multiple overlapping layers. The A5 and the Centurion were just two aspects of this particular protocol._

_MODEL A5 with turbofan in place, rotated for level flight. Tripod landing claws retracted, and plasma gun turrets set to standard coverage. Both turrets could fire to each side, giving the A5 an impressive 'broadside' capacity._

_SKYNET's dated A4 series was rapidly becoming obsolete. Its electronics were dated, and could be fooled by countermeasures invented by the Resistance. Once the A4 had been blinded, it was easy prey for the more advanced and heavy, high energy direct fire weapons which the Resistance started to field in the middle stages of the War. SKYNET needed a new design, a more up to date design, but still something small, easy to manufacture, and effective._

_The A14 was the answer, being a redesigned A4 with more powerful weapons, more powerful engines, and a lighter, stronger frame. The electronics were upgraded as well; giving rise to the characteristic 'dog tail' that became prevalent in the later generation of Aerial units. The A14 employed a reverse claw landing system (two claws rear, one forward) and much of its mass was situated in the tail assembly, giving it balance near the engines. A single powered mount on the ventral fuselage held a twin heavy plasma gun in a single mount. Forward in the nosecone, to each side of the navionics, were a pair of smaller, but more rapid fire phased plasma guns, four in all, giving the A14 more striking capacity than the model it replaced. VTOL capacity and hover were retained, but the dual wing format allowed the A14 to obtain higher speeds, making it able to reach farther away to distant patrol zones and to provide protection and interception there._

_

* * *

The first series of HK ground units were designed for rapid pacification of large areas but the smaller the area or the fewer the targets, the more difficult the task became for the large HK units. The HKs were simply too large, awkward and cumbersome to follow the humans down below ground and the few early models of bipedal units sent to infiltrate the human warrens never met with any high degree of success; it was just too easy for the humans to set traps or ambush what few types and designs of Machines SKYNET could deploy to follow the humans where they hid. SKYNET realized that above ground, it had the advantage where size, firepower and armor could be matched with speed to run down anything that moved or tried to hide but the humans began a series of guerilla actions for which it was ill equipped (at first) to respond to. Among the more substantial ruins and below ground in the subways, sewers and other maintenance areas of the old cities, SKYNET's designs were at an obvious disadvantage and suffered rapid attrition. SKYNET owned the sky and the surface while the humans owned everything beneath._

_The humans who survived the initial Machine attacks soon learned to hide from the Machines during the day, often in hastily prepared underground bunkers and old maze-like sewers while the HKs prowled the ruins above, searching and eliminating any humans found. Initial Résistance to the Machines came from small groups of humans banding together and working towards common goals. Their tactics became clandestine, their actions harder to predict and provide countermeasures against. Humans were moving underground, in increasingly large numbers, using old public utility, sewer and mass transit tunnels to remain, for the most part, undetected by SKYNET's surveillance systems. SKYNET realized at an early phase that it would need combat units that could follow the humans where ever they went, even down into the cracks and depths of the ruins. SKYNET began to systematically extend its awareness by using a network of sensors and scanners, everything from full spectrum visual sinks, motion and acoustic acquisition wells and olfactory catch basins. Over a period of several months, small automated worker drones installed these sensors in carefully concealed locations throughout the underground ruins and SKYNET began a passive study of human migration and actions. It began to see what it could not see before, hear what it could not hear before and smell what it could not smell before. SKYNET was surprised and angered by the amount of humans that existed below the ruins and it was obvious that its original estimate of the effectiveness of the extermination sweeps had been in error to an unacceptable degree. Small ARIGS (Autonomous Reconnaissance Information Gathering Systems) were dispatched into the depths below the ruins, most were very small (less than 1/6th of a meter in diameter) ducted fan surveillance units equipped with whisper quiet propulsion systems and short range, broad aspect all spectrum sensors. The early ARIGS were cheaply produced, little more than engine, power pack, crude control surfaces, cut-rate command electronics and a basic visual, broad spectrum, auditory and olfactory detection suite. As such, the ARIGS could do better than 4km per hour at full speed, moved silently and could hover at an altitude of up to one hundred meters. Groups of humans were followed at a discreet distance, often observed silently from high up near the roof of the tunnels where the shadows were darkest and any sound made by the ARIGS would be hard to place or determine the source or direction from. ARIGS grew smaller and more complex with longer ranges and greater operating endurance regimens within the space of just a few short years. SKYNET methodically improved its Intel systems, gathering all the information it could about the human survivors who were not only living under the ruins but were also apparently organizing into small bands of cohesive, force capable groups. _

_This was unacceptable to the machine intelligence which saw any organized human activity as a direct threat._

_SKYNET began to assemble a new series of combat unit designed specifically to go anywhere humans could go, to mimic the human capacity to adapt to differing terrain and conditions with ease. SKYNET's new series of elimination Machines would not be stopped at the surface, instead, they would be able to follow the humans where ever they retreated to and root them out from their hiding places. The new Terminator series anti-personnel Machines would support the heavier HK units while above ground but when humans retreated beneath the ruins, the new Terminator series of Machines could pursue and neutralize. Until this new series of unit was put into production, SKYNET needed a stop-gap measure to curb the human population and to bring their numbers back into check. For this, the AI turned to designing variants of the ARIGS systems intended to become small, efficient yet semi-disposable anti-personnel weapon systems. The new types of weapon systems were called AAPS (Autonomous Anti-Personnel Systems) and consisted of small, flight capable ARIGS units modified to carry a basic hunter killer electronics package as well as an extended power pack for increased loiter times, energy conservation subroutines to maintain peak power requirements and a sensor suite taken from the most advanced ARIGS design. Unlike the ARIGS, the AAPS were designed to make an initial entry into the underground areas, find a secluded place and then lay in wait on lone humans or small groups of humans to pass by at which point the AAPS would engage and neutralize the target. The programming of the AAPS allowed it to follow and engage individual targets at ideal situations, modifying its tactics as it went and learning from its experiences (one of the first of the new series of combat Machines to be able to do so)._

_Armament for the AAPS consisted of a variety of toxin dispensers, powered misters, high pressure fluid stream dispensers and powered hypodermic injectors. The typical attack subroutine called for the AAPS to wait in hiding, preferably in a damaged section of wall or ceiling, in complete shadow. When a target passed by, passive sensors would record the target's information and the unit would spin up to full power, a series of system initializations which would take approximately two point seven nine seconds. The AAPS would then lift off from its perch silently on ducted fans, floating down out of its hiding place and approach the target from above, at an oblique angle out of immediate view even if the target turned to look behind them. Speed would be gathered naturally by cutting power to the lift fans and letting gravity assert itself on the unit, increasing speed for the attack. Once the AAPS was within one meter of the target, it would deliver a lethal dose of bio/neuro/physio toxin through a high pressure stream to the target's skin or other exposed area (sometimes to the face if the target turned to look towards the unit). Absorption was nearly instantaneous into the skin and blood stream with debilitating effects taking place within six point nine seconds of dosage administration and lethal effect being achieved some nine point six seconds after initial dosage delivery, on average, depending on type of toxin and amount which actually contacted the skin._

_SKYNET continued to refine its AAPS models over the years. Later models evolved rapidly into lighter, more effective hunter killers. The improved AAPS (IAAPS) had better propulsion; faster flight speeds, longer ranges, increased loiter times due to high density crystal matrix batteries, better sensors and more accurate, more effective anti-personnel weapon systems. The initial toxin dispensers would remain (evolving into highly complex and highly effective delivery systems) but they would be supplemented by superwire based garrotes as well as contact hypodermic injectors and nearly silent toxin tipped frangible needles propelled to high speeds by induction field generated magnetic bias. One variant of the IAAPS used its induction fans to power a ring of serrated surgical steel blades (later superwire edged adjustable pitch polyhedrons) to several thousand RPMs, turning the rim of its lifting surface into a viscous cutting edge capable of shearing through most substances. Combine this with a high speed pass and the shrieking of the air passing through the cutting blades and the IAAPS truly became weapon of fear and terror in the dark, below ground areas._

_SKYNET tried several countermeasures to the surge in human cooperation among the various groups with the most effective being chemical and biological in nature, both short term and persistent. Some of the more successful designs of early killing Machines were little more than automated, self propelled, chemical and toxin dispensers with a large degree of mobility and just enough just programming to complete their task._

_To SKYNET, human stubbornness made no sense. They fought when logic told the synthetic intelligence that they were beaten. They relentlessly poured out of the rubble like a bacterial plague, their patterns of counterattack clever and difficult to predict. And humans reproduced at an alarming rate, their sexual appetites evidently fanned high by the threat of total annihilation. Even though it took at least eight years before the human young could be made ready for battle, they were beginning to outpace SKYNET's manufacturing capabilities. And they were quickly learning to find the soft spots in the metal vanguard, decimating SKYNET's army of killing machines. Soon, there would be more human soldiers than non-human. The hyper-computer had miscalculated gravely on something it was still furiously analyzing: human will. So far, it had not come to a conclusion. And the War was grinding into its ninth year...._

* * *

There was a light. A bright light, searing, like the sun. It split the night landscape and licked over the shattered concrete shapes, etching razor-sharp shadows. There was wind, too, blasting straight down, and a screaming sound, like metal dying, that she realized was a jet engine or engines.

The down-blast whipped the ash drifts, exposing a jack-straw heap of bones. Ash was blasted from the sockets of skulls, and shadows from the searchlights tracked across the empty orbits in a parody of life. The machine was like an enormous wasp except that where the wings would be, at the center of the thorax, there were two turbojet housings aimed straight down. The thing hovered and dipped, scanning on visual and infra-red frequencies. Then it banked, nosing down and picking up air speed ... its under-slung gun fired once into a burned-out building and then retracted into the belly nacelle as the craft continued its patrol. The sound of the veil of black tearing was greater than any natural thunder. A loud, rolling rumble flowed across the ruins, echoing through the steel skeletons of the urban battlefield. Private Three Terra had heard explosions before, loud ones, but this one came without light, without flash, and it just rumbled on and on, shaking the ground, she could feel it through her combat boots as she squatted there, safe she had thought but now she wasn't sure.

"Thunder or arty?" Terra whispered towards her CO, Jefferson, as they huddled there in the ruins looking for any sign of the Machines.

"Neither." Jefferson said solemnly as he leaned out from the ruins looking up at the star-less night.

Jefferson snicked down his scanner from his helmet and started searching the cloud laced heavens. Thermal imaging coupled with the limited processor of the system was still enough to confirm what he had feared. Motion tracking rapidly acquired the object and began to passively acquire data about it from its various emissions. He zoomed in on the rapidly approaching silver object; the thermal readings from the engine pods of the machine put it at the top of the scale, in the heavy transport class. He hit the record button and started a coded microburst back to the area HQ, getting what he could as the giant transport slowed gracefully, extended its landing claws, and began a calculated decent into an area of ruins some three klicks away.

"Then what was it?" Terra asked, looking and trying to see what her CO was looking for.

"Sonic boom." Jefferson said, continuing to watch as the dust settled around the transport.

"What's that?"

"Shock wave in the air, something big moving really fast makes it."

"What's it mean?" Terra asked.

"It means we've got big trouble. Clankers and they're being air delivered."

"Aww crap!" Terra said louder than she would have liked.

Terra began checking her plasma rifle and her gear before moving to lay flat on her stomach and try to peer out towards the ruins. Terra was a good kid, Jefferson thought as he moved over to give her some space next to him. Terra learned quickly, and she was the kind who had a quiet curiosity, that meant that even though she asked questions, they weren't annoying and she didn't press for details. Terra just seemed to figure things out on her own, a trait that Jefferson liked in the fourteen year old.

Jefferson adjusted the pickup and gain on his scanning visor. The processor rapidly shifted through the digital imaging of the ruins, found the grounded transport, and zoomed in. The filters began to slip over each other, resolving the image until it was as clear as it could be, given the distance of over three klicks. The processor began searching around the landing claws of the grounded transport, and new shapes began to move there. Machines. Armed endoskeletons walking methodically from the cavernous belly of the transport, spreading out into the ruins on a search and destroy protocol. From what Jefferson knew, it appeared to be carrying a full load, which Intel said would be about forty whiners, give or take.

Looked like Jefferson and his team would be up most of the night smashing SKYNET's toys into junk.

Jefferson keyed up his communicator.

"Central this is Whiskey Five. I have ears and eyes on a 'Nator 'Sport. Get ready for company. They aren't very far out..."

Another pair of sonic booms, one after the other, swept over the ruins and Jefferson mouthed a silent curse. Three transports total, that would make for over a hundred and twenty Endos, not counting any supporting hardware the Machines might bring along. It was going to be a long night. Jefferson began to wonder if he would live to see morning.

"Central, make that three 'sports. I repeat three confirmed visuals on 'Nator transports, Unit models specifications; Models T only highly probable versions; T-800 series. Uploading live feed now, we will try to hold this position and relay tactical data as long as possible, requesting fire elements one, five and seven to move to this position for overwatch, over."

It looked like SKYNET wanted Major Spicer's HQ in a bad way.

* * *

"So you got yourself a bloody Tinker's plasma pistol? Ha! Go on; heft that motha with your good hand! Yeah, see...? Heavy, ain't it? Too heavy to be no pistol, Girlie. The M20's more like a bulky carbine for us humans, it takes two hands to hold that fat little pig down tight when she starts to snort off and buck up and if you're not wearing your gloves when you grip the front you can expect blista's a many from the flash output. It may be a bloody plasma machine pistol for the Tinkers ... The sods carry two of 'em, they bloody do! And they use them one handed to spray anything that moves and even some things that don't move no more. Damn Tinkers kill you twice now these days. I seen a Tinker burn a hole in a man clean through where he stood then burn another hole in him when he was already done dead and smoking on the ground. Guess it's just their way of making sure you're dead. I say bullocks on that. I do the same to them because if you don't make sure that a Tinker is down and that it's going to stay down then it will get back up when you least expect it. Out in the field you can't afford any surprises like a Tinker coming back online, standing up behind you and coming after you all over again, not when you thought you'd done gone and killed it all right proper and the like. So, go on! Puts an extra bolt or two into the bloody Tinker and make sure that you blow the head and its CPU to superheated metal fog when you do otherwise that cold metal hand on your shoulder might be one o' the last things you ever feel in this here jolly old life. Take me word for it, Girlie. I seen a Tinker not killed right proper like come back up and pull me mate's head clean off his shoulders he did, fore he even had time to scream ... You just go on and practice with that M20 for a while and you get real good at using it because it's a damn sure bet that the Tinkers know how to use them. Hell, they designed the damn things in the first place which is how we kind of went about and got our hands on these. Guess there's some good to the Tinker's after all. At least they're kind enough to let us steal the type of weapons that we can use to put them down and put them down good."

Five 12 year old children were huddled together staring slack jawed at the British weapons expert's cynical sense of humor. The man had no hair whatsoever, he had a scar running from his left eye down to his chin, the British mans clothing was standard for Résistance fighters; black cargo pants, long black trench coat, fingerless gloves, combat boots, a shirt that may have once been the color white a _long_ time ago, a black bulletproof vest and of course a mans best friend; the M95A1 plasma rifle.

"Dammit Charles, are you scaring the little kids again?" growled a female voice standing ten feet to the left of the group. Said woman was not having a pleasant day, not that any day was a pleasant day, she had to deal with a bunch of horny idiotic teenage boys who knew nothing about math or geometry, sometimes she wondered why the major even assigned he that position as high school teacher. She wore the same clothing as the man except for the trench coat.

"N-no Kimiko I swear I was just…" he was cut of by the menacing glare, if looks could kill, Skynet would be pushing up daisies "Just what? Telling little boys and girls about how the metal men can rip their heads from their shoulders?" Kimiko sarcastically questioned, walking over to the British buffoon she snatched the rifle from his hands "Charles, your supposed to be teaching these children about weapons and how to use them not telling them horror stories about death in the field" "well then how are they supposed to be prepared to fight the endless hordes of mechanical monsters?" Charles inquired "oh please, the freaking toasters it's not like they feel or anything" with that said, she turned to the children.

"Alright, since Mr. bad manners won't teach you little twerps I guess I have to, welcome to weapons 101" she sighed as she moved over to a table with a dozen or so weapons placed on it. Picking up what looked to be an assault rifle she turned to the kids and asked "Who knows what this one is?" not a second later all the children raised their hands.

Kimiko pointed to a girl dressed in brown sleeveless tunic "yes Susan?"

"M16A2 5.56mm assault rifle" answered the blond girl "Very good Susan" the Japanese woman smiled. Putting the rifle down then pointing to a small row of rifles "and what about these one's?" a brown haired boy raised his hand "Scotty" "M95A1 / A2 phased plasma rifles" the boy stated.

"Good, very good now can someone tell me the weapon specifications?"Kimiko asked, not a single child raised their hands but instead of a child answering the question a deep yet soft voice was heard from the entrance of the room.

"M95A1 Phased plasma rifle: Heavy individual fully portable, high gain, very high energy weapon system, high capacity feed. Enduralloy components mated to carbon fiber and moly fiber carrier, misc. plastics and metals with superconducting filaments" The man stated. Kimiko looked surprised at the level of knowledge _that_ guy had.

Said man walked towards the end of the room to where the weapons were placed then picked up the Plasma rifle the Kimiko held.

"Contact hit produces 10mm diameter entry point forming destructive tunneling of target material through kinetic energy and super thermal contact. Upon negative penetration or contact with a superior surface, bolt will destabilize into high speed thermal tributary fragments with a one meter lethal splash radius. Laser excited, magnetically accelerated 10mm x 1000mm pre-emptive phased conversion thermal bolt will penetrate 10.5cm of case hardened steel up to effective range with loss of overall penetration commensurate with range after that. Immediate transfer of thermo-kinetic energy to soft target tissues and standing fluids rated at greater than 95% with high speed liquid to vapor thermal expansion. High duration of residual thermal effects noted in hard surfaces struck by plasma fire. Explosive displacement of up to one cubic meter of material may result from bolt impact with material having trapped water or water vapor inside (porous rock, concrete, masonry, etc.) with lethal spall out to one point five meters from point of explosive decoupling of material cohesive structure" the man gave a smirk as the children stared in at the mans intellect. The man turned to Kimiko and started grinning like an idiot.

"and remember kids this weapon is highly dangerous, this weapon offers a Consistent Damage Index of 180 / 10 representing at effective range the 10mm x 1000mm bolt will penetrate 180 cm of standard ballistic gelatin with a wound channel radiating out 10 cm from the point of impact narrowing from that radius in accordance with depth and tensile strength of target material as the bolt loses temperature and velocity. This rating does not take into account any standing liquids such as water or blood that may be encountered as such liquids will be instantaneously vaporized thus greatly increasing the wound channel radius through flash heating causing high velocity steam expansion and lethal bursting of soft tissues over a large volume of body area" the man could see that none of the children understood what he said so he decided to take the level of intellect down one level.

"In simplest terms; unless you want to blow yourself a new-"Kimiko's hand instantly flew up to cover the man's mouth "Okay, that's enough out of Mr. Pedrosa. Class is dismissed for the day go…do whatever you kids do on your free time" a roar of 'yay's!' were herd through out the room as the kids ran out.

Once all the children and Charles were gone Kimiko turned to Raimundo "I can't believe you were really about to say that!" she growled. Raimundo just shrugged and rested his hands to the back of his neck "Hey babe, kids gotta learn how to kill tinkers sometime" he replied.

Kimiko only seemed to be provoked by his comment "Jesus, what is it with men nowadays all you guys want to do is either scare the little kids or blow the chip out of a metal's head, what, did women fall out category of most wanted on the list in men's heads?"

Raimundo looked at her with a skeptical look before saying "Like I said, these children have to learn that were at war and if they don't toughen up then were all screwed"

"You don't have to be so blunt about everything" she grumbled with a small pout.

Raimundo sighed as he looked at the putting beautiful Japanese woman standing in front of him. Dammit he knew he couldn't resist that face, wrapping his arms around her waist Raimundo pulled her close to his chest and whispered "if it makes you feel better than okay, I'll ease up on the gore and death, and I guess I'll pay more attention to you" that brought a smile to her face.

"For me really?" she gave a fake dreamy smile. Raimundo knew she was making fun of him, one of the things she was really good at.

"okay then I won't" Raimundo said while turning to leave, but was stopped by Kimiko rushing in front of him "oh come on I'm just teasing, you know I like it when you get all fussy" Kimiko giggled, much to Raimundo's embarrassment. Kimiko's arm's wrapped around his neck as his wrapped around her waist "And besides" her head tilted to her right as she drew he face closer to his until their lips were only mere inches apart "you know I love you" she whispered before their lips locked in a soft yet powerful kiss.

The moment of romance was brutally interrupted by the screeching sirens and bright red flashing lights erupting all over the base. A loud banging came from the opposite side of the classroom door.

"What the hell is it now!?" Raimundo yelled in frustration, he barley had time in between missions to see his wife, much less have 'relations' with her and for her it was vice versa "I swear if this is a drill I'm going to blow someone's head off" Raimundo growled as he grabbed the door handle and sung the door open.

"WHAT!?" Raimundo screamed, to his shock and confusion he saw no one there he was about to turn around until he felt something tug slightly at his pants, looking down he saw a small child holding a piece of paper and looking fearfully at him. Raimundo sighed and uttered a 'sorry' rubbing the girls already frizzy head, the girl smiled then looked at the paper and started reading.

"Were under attack all personnel are to report to their defense stations ASAP" the kid turned then headed down to the next door and repeated reading the report,

"Raimundo's nearly bulged out of his sockets

_**

* * *

INFORMATION ---T-500 SERIES---you may skip if wanted---**_

_Using the data obtained from field use of the T200 and T300 series units, SKYNET reached the conclusion that the reason that humans had survived for so long was that they were incredibly adaptable, especially to different terrains and environmental conditions. The very design of the human body allowed a great deal of freedom of movement over a variety of terrain and in areas that the Series 300 units could not access nor could the T200 units gain an effective foot hold._

_The heavy pacification campaigns conducted by SKYNET began to drive the human Résistance underground, deep into the ruins. More and more battles were fought using guerilla tactics, a range of tactics that the current models of HKs were ill-designed to utilize or adapt to. Specialized human sapper teams, highly trained in guerilla tactics and ambush techniques, would prowl the ruins, waiting to ambush and defeat the 500 series Machines. Other Résistance units, equipped with a limited stock of liberated pre-War man portable surface to air guided missiles, were recording unacceptable losses against the 400 series Aerial units. Even combined arms doctrine of having the 400 series Aerials escort and provide over-watch for the patrolling 500 series pacification units was only marginal effective in reducing losses between the two units._

_It soon became apparent to SKYNET that the humans could readily maneuver and strike from positions that were just not reachable by any of the currently fielded HK series of units. SKYNET began to see that even the 300 series units could not track the humans back to their underground headquarters and staging areas; the maneuverability of the 300 series was on the order of a Ostrich, not a human being, and a locked door or a barricaded entrance way proved more than a adequate defense against even 100 series units. A new unit was needed, a HK unit that could simulate the exact range of movement that a human being could, a unit no larger or wider than a human being; a fully anthropomorphic hunter killer design designed to incur every advantage that the human body enjoyed in movement without any of the weaknesses. Data obtained from the trials of the 200 series and the 300 series units produced the design parameters for the T500 series._

_Studying human anatomy, SKYNET produced the first of the endoskeletal based HK units. A microprocessor controlled, hyperalloy armored combat chassis was fitted to servo hydraulic actuators. The T500 looked like a gleaming metal skeleton, it could move faster than a human, had sensors that were lighter yet just as powerful as those of the Series 1200 Scout, and had three modes of operation; direct, automatic, and autonomous. The new T500 could be directed by SKYNET directly like a puppet, it could react automatically to a wide variety of pre-programmed conditions, or the individual units could be relinquished to their own control and act independently for months on end, combing the ruins on extended search and destroy missions. Memory for the T500 series was set to read only, thus its available responses to any given tactical situation were limited and after a time, predictable._

_The T500 was armored in a half centimeter hyperalloy sheath which offered superior protection from small arms fire and to a limited extent, from explosions and energy weapons. The T500, thanks to its advanced hydraulics, could perform superhuman feats of strength, never got fatigued, never had to rest, breathe, or eat. It was the perfect hunter, tireless, remorseless, merciless, dedicated, and capable. The T500 stood 2 meters tall and weighed almost 400kg._

_The unit was fast, able to maintain a constant run at 60 kph with short bursts of up to 75 kph, but these speed bursts taxed the servos and the joints of the leg assemblies. The T500 could dead lift five times its own weight or punch through concrete and metal with no damage to its reinforced servos. The main armament of the T500 was the Westinghouse M25A1 series plasma rifle but its design and manipulator hands allowed it to use any standard small arm or weapon including stocks of pre-War small arms. The programming of the T500 included detailed information files on all known small arms of the world (circa 1997 A.D.) as well as detailed files on human anatomy, behavior and logic. Résistance casualties were on the order of 80 to 1 in odds against the T500's improved performance, with the odds edging higher in the first few months of introduction when the unit caught the Résistance off guard and mankind was ill-equipped to deal with a brand new design that could track it anywhere._

_The T500 was officially classified as an "Infiltrator" and a "Terminator" unit, a first for SKYNET's designs. The Terminator designation was obvious, but the Infiltrator status was special. Now, SKYNET had a unit with which to take the fight back to the Résistance. All previous and post models now would bear the designation "Terminator" but only the T500, T800 and T1000 models would also carry the designation "Infiltrator"._

_SKYNET would try many new tactics with the T500 line of HK units, including covering the unit in a latex pseudo-skin and trying to pass it off as a human. This tactic worked, but only at range. Up close, the T500-I model failed to pass for human, but it was a promising start for SKYNET and required a dedicated sub-processor assembly to fully analyze the tactical importance of fielding a unit capable of being mistaken for a human._

_A notable T500 variant was the T500C or "Drone" unit. The T500C was a maintenance unit, with all combat programming and hardware stripped during production. Sensors were bare minimum required to perform repair and maintenance. T500C units acted as wardens at human concentration camps where armed Résistance was almost nonexistent. The T500C could still beat a human in hand to hand combat but also gave SKYNET a unit that could fit into the places that humans had originally designed for themselves to be able to reach when SKYNET was still supposed to serve the human race. T500Cs were never encountered on the battlefield, and when SKYNET went off-line, 99% of the T500Cs in operation died with it. The T500C acted as the eyes, ears, and hands of SKYNET, controlled directly by the super computer._

_T500R "Reaver" -R variant, psychological warfare unit_

_Another short lived production variant of the T500 was the T500R or "Reaver" model as it became known by Résistance units. This aberration was designed to frighten and intimidate the Résistance fighters in a bold design and tactical project based on research into using fear in psychological warfare. The T500R used a standard T500 chassis, but mounted the sensors in the upper torso in an armored blister, doing away with the head mount altogether. The forearms were increased in length by fifty percent in order to mount the higher capacity hydraulic rams that powered the heavier duty manipulator unit motors. The five digit manipulative fingers were replaced with slightly exaggerated serrated claws and the finger tips with razor sharp monofilament edged blades which drew the power to maintain their containment fields directly through high capacity leads attached to the power plant itself._

_The unit's speed was increased through stronger hydraulics and better mounts and all sound absorption material was removed, creating the loudest of all bipedal mobile units. The T500R was introduced in a limited production run of 200 units. Deployed to the battlefield, the T500R struck terror into Résistance fighters who coined the term "Headless" or "Ghoul" for the unit. T500Rs would acquire targets, intercept them at a high speed lope, and dispatch them with the hydraulically powered blades, often to the point of overkill in ripping the victim into tattered remains. Some T500Rs would slowly kill their acquired targets, especially if other members of the Résistance were known to be watching or hiding in the vicinity; all for the single purpose of instilling fear of the machine into the human psyche. Detailed anatomy and medical files were part of the databases of the T500R, information that was constantly updated through field exercise and SKYNET's own live subject testing procedures done in its automated labs. As the years went by, the T500Rs became some of the most effective killers ever produced, though their lack of ranged armament restricted their use to ambush and lightly defended rear echelon areas and warrens. The T500R was a terror weapon, and it worked. However, possessing no ranged weapons and only close combat / hand to hand armament, the Résistance soon learned that the proper way to deal with a T500R was to engage it as far away as possible with conventional anti-armor or high energy weaponry._

_SKYNET reprogrammed the T500Rs tactical doctrine to adopt a guerilla warfare subroutine and soon the remaining T500Rs were going dormant, hiding in debris and destroyed buildings, patrolling the sewers and subway stations, waiting on targets to wander into detection range. By then, it was generally too late for the target. The T500R was adept at lurking in the ruins, its matte finish helping it to blend in with the debris in order to allow it greater camouflage capacity. _

_The chassis and suspension of the T500R was also modified in the later -B model to incorporate hyper rotational joints which moved on frictionless bearing rings. The legs and arms were further modified by being lengthened some fifty percent and there was initial confusion that the T500R -B variant might have actually been a variant of the T500 "Gaunt" but detailed post combat disassembly by Résistance scavenger teams proved that while similar in appearance, the two models did not use common parts._

_The -B models could squat down, tucking their legs and arms in around them to present a very small center of mass, thus presenting a smaller cross section in which to be spotted. Using power conservation management subroutines, the T500R could loiter in a given hunt area for weeks, its sensors passively searching for acoustic and thermal spikes which would represent targets of opportunity entering the area. Once a target was identified and selected as a valid engagement choice, the T500R would rapidly bring power to its primary systems (a process that took 1.67 seconds to achieve) and would unfold from its loiter configuration. The servos of the T500R were purposely designed to whine more loudly when under load. This was achieved by making the servos thinner and increasing frictional load on non-bearing surfaces. Tests in both the field and controlled lab environments showed that the sound of the T500R's servos, especially when the unit was moving and operating at high speed, had a detrimental effect on the morale of Résistance units. A limited number of T500R units were given replicating vocoders so that they could sample the sounds of their victims and then digitally edit, mix, and rebroadcast these sound files at levels approaching 90 standard decibels. The effect of this reintroduction of victim sounds to the ambient environment was shown to further decrease morale among Résistance forces, as proven by both automated lab tests and actual field exercises._

_T500-S -S variant, ELINT scout unit_

_The T500-S was produced with advanced Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) features and an enhanced scout electronic suite. Liquid crystal equipped variable pan and scan optics were installed (an option that would become standard on the later T800 series) with wide angle aperture mountings. Motion and acoustic sensors were upgraded to the -S specifications and the thermal imaging systems were updated with the -V3.79C build, which offered higher resolution and cryogenic cooling of the image processing array. The cranial shell of the T500-S had to be increased in size and was a new mold rather than a modification of the existing unit. SKYNET also situated both the main CPU and the backup CPU of the T500 into the chest cavity with access to the processor through an armored plate on the back of the chassis. The optic mounts were also modified and given a longer track so that they could be moved to cover greater than a 270 degree angle of vision. The high sensitivity acoustic sensors were mounted lower and slightly to the rear of the new cranial form, while the olfactory sensors remained in their standard position. Two sub-processors worked to control and coordinate the ocular arrays, which could be moved independently on their mounts to cover different aspects. Information gathered from the ocular sensors was filtered by the dedicated sub-processor before being relegated to the main CPU for review. While the new ocular mounts afforded the T500-S a great deal of sensor coverage not available to the normal T500 unit, initial tests showed that the movement of the ocular sensors greatly disturbed the live test subjects who observed the operation of the ocular mounts. This reaction was noted and accepted._

_The T500-S was able to go where the Series 1200 Scouts could not and T500-S models worked closely with other larger units to track large movements of Résistance units as well as venturing below ground to gather tactical and strategic data on Résistance strong holds and movements. Often, when SKYNET deployed special operations (SPEC-OPS) braces of endoskeletons, the braces were made up of one T500-S acting as point and brace coordinator, followed by four to five T500 (later T800) series units with one of those invariably being either a -T variant or a -W variant. Although more costly in time and materials than the Series 1200, the T500-S had many advantages over the older scout series._

_The T500-S was more maneuverable, faster, better armored and could also be armed with the same weapon load-out that the standard T500 unit could which meant that it could be issued, operate, or obtain any standard small arm or light support weapon in use at that time._

_Only three thousand and sixty five T500-S units were produced and over half were still in service by the time of the Final Victory._

_T500-T -T "Tank" Heavy Support Variant-_

_The T500 series chassis proved to be so adaptable that SKYNET implemented many designs on that particular model, some of which saw field use and some of which did not. The -T variant was a limited production unit which met with a high degree of success in both controlled and field operations. SKYNET's need for a medium to heavy support unit for its small unit tactics was a given. Initial protocols were based around designing large scale, rapid fatigue plasma weapons and issuing those to selected endoskeleton models. The initial development of the heavy plasma guns found that the existing T500 series did not have the capacity to fully utilize this weapon to its full potential and initial field exercises met with mixed results. The chassis was not strong enough to handle the output of this weapon, nor was the power plant of the unit. Self contained power plants were introduced, mounted in armored carriers and attached to the rear of the chassis, but their mass caused undue stress on the suspension and the failure of three units so equipped in the field resulted in termination of that design branch._

_The T800 series of endoskeleton was in pre-planning but SKYNET needed a small unit support element before the T800 would ever see production. In a fit of desperation, SKYNET took a standard T500 and removed the forearm and manipulators from the design. In place of each forearm and hand, SKYNET incorporated dual rapid pulse phased plasma guns in a single combined mount with dedicated power leads and extra capacity fuel cells. The dual weapon mount housed a M95A1 plasma gun and a coaxial M20-A plasma gun, both stripped down to their component elements and packaged in a cooling sleeve that prevented overheating. A high intensity white spot light was mounted as part of the weapon pod and could provide white light illumination along the same path that the weapon pod was being aimed. An alternate active infra-red source projector was also mounted in the pod and used to illuminate areas when the white spot might give the unit away._

_The power supply of the T500-T was also upgraded, being moved higher up in the frame and used the same unit found in the T500R -B model. Dedicated power and high flow fuel leads to the heavy plasma guns were attached at the bottom of the weapon mount and linked to the rear chassis of the unit by a flexible armored coil cable a meter and a half long and three centimeters in diameter. The armored cables were the one weak link in the design as severe damage to the cables would prevent the plasma guns from operating or lead to feedback that could damage or destroy the unit. The cables, though armored, were highly susceptible to the effects of explosions, both proximity and especially contact._

_Another weakness was found in an initial design parameter specifying only two centimeters of superalloy armor plating on the rear power cradle housing. This parameter was changed after several T500-T units were lost to Résistance sharp shooters who engaged the units from behind, targeting the somewhat weaker armor plating protecting the hydrogen power cell. The modified production parameter called for three and a quarter centimeters thickness which proved more than adequate at protecting the hydrogen power cell in field trials and actual combat._

_In order to offset the increased mass of the larger power cell which had been moved up and to the rear, the T500-T had a chassis modification that made it stoop forward and walk with a slight but noticeable lope. This stance, along with the enlarged armored shell on its back housing the larger power supply gave the unit the nickname of "Hunchback" among Résistance units. The nickname "tank" was also used on occasion, though the nomenclature is unclear except as a possible reference to the heavier armament._

_The electronics of the unit were also upgraded to allow for multiple targeting and multiple target engagement (a protocol that would not be implemented on a series wide basis until the introduction of the T800 series years later). The CPU was aided by two high speed co-processors, each controlling fully all the functions of one weapon system of the T500-T model. In the event of the loss of a co-processor, the main CPU could take over the load of weapons management but at reduced efficiency. The optic sensor arrays were enhanced with faster motion tracking and rapid target lock sequencers._

_A total of 1800 T500-T models were produced and with the introduction of the T800-T models years later, the older T500-T models were relegated to installation defense and rear echelon resource raiding operations. By the time of the Final Victory, only 397 T500-T units remained in operational service, with another 48 awaiting repair and parts in depots scattered throughout the Occupied Territories._

* * *

Meanwhile in the command Room.

"Sapper team XI Delta has just sent us a report; there are three transports heading towards the Cheyenne mountain pass" stated Smith "that's a hundred and twenty T-800's"

"Get everyone prepared, make sure all the women and children get into the shelters" Jack ordered standing from the chair he previously sat in. Jack hadn't changed much over the eight year period, besides of course the fact that he now wore elite combat gear: dirty black cargo pants, black combat boots, knee/elbow pads, fingerless gloves, black long sleeve shirt and a black bulletproof vest. The vest had pockets that held various equipment such as knives, pocket mirrors, med tools, etc.

Jack had two favorite weapons; weapon number 1, custom redesigned M20 LAPPPG Plasma handgun

_**

* * *

M20-A Series Weapon System Specifications---**_

_SKYNET had just begun production of the T600 Terminator unit when it reached a critical decision junction. A soldier needed to be armed and SKYNET logically wanted to equip its units with the best weapons it could design. The M-25A2 series weapon had been surpassed now in research by newer, more powerful technology. SKYNET's continued research into small displacement fully portable plasma ejectors reached another level of achievement in 2015 A.D. with the introduction of a more powerful weapon than the M-25A1/A2 series; the M20-A. The M20-A was a smaller version of the follow up M95A1, in essence, a sawed-off plasma rifle. Some theorize that the M95A1 was produced first and the M20-A secondly while others speculate just the opposite. In any case, the year 2015 A. D. saw the introduction to SKYNET forces of a superior phased plasma gun combo; a large, heavy duty pistol format plasma ejector and a much larger bull-pup configuration heavy duty plasma rifle. "Pistol" may not exactly be the right word, though it was certainly used as such in the grip of the Endoskeleton Terminators that the weapon was assigned to. When a human tried to use the weapon, it became more of a carbine in format._

_The design of the new series plasma weapons was such that the core configuration could be graduated in size either up or down the production scale. A 30% smaller weapon was achieved by modeling the system in a smaller scale. The traditional bullpup configuration was discarded and total weapon balance was moved forward in the design by repositioning the fuel / power cell forward of the pistol grip and firing actuator assembly. The newly designated M20-A was intended to provide SKYNET mobile ground units with a lighter, more compact, rapid fatigue plasma generator capable of engaging any mobile target while at the same time being less costly in time and production materials than the larger M95A1 model. SKYNET could produce three M20-A plasma guns for each M95A1 plasma gun that it produced, a considerable cost in time and materials to arm its mobile infantry units. By 2016 A.D., endoskeletons carrying dual M20-A plasma guns became common sights in contested areas, coinciding with the across the board upgrade of most of SKYNET's front line combat units with the new series 3 model A44-X5 combat microprocessor and the Mod 5 sensor upgrades for which the M20-A was a perfect compliment._

_The M20-A heavy snub-carbine plasma gun (human designation, also referred to colloquially among veterans as the "blunderbuss," source unknown.) and M20-A heavy plasma pistol (SKYNET designation) is the same weapon. The bulk of the snub plasma projector was such that it was effectively a one handed weapon when employed by the current series of endoskeleton combat chassis and a two handed weapon when employed by human Resistance fighters. A modified model 3A front EM suppressor assembly provided protection from plasma flash / thermal wash flashback during prolonged firing. With a 50% smaller plasma generator system, a substantial weight and space savings was noticed at an equally substantial loss to overall range. The M20-A also became the mainstay of installation support and security units, where a heavier more intense plasma discharge might not be advantageous to surrounding capital or critical priority equipment as it didn't have the punch of the larger M95A1 series weapon._

_The M20-A was designed for select fire, from single pulse, to three round pulses, to full automatic though the limited cooling of the weapon made full automatic fire something of a risk during prolonged bursts. The Series 2 power / fuel cell gave 100 pulses before being exhausted. The Series 3 power / fuel cell of the M20-A2 weapon class increased this capacity through containment management to 150 pulses between replacements. Refueling was accomplished either by replacing the entire power cell. SKYNET's facilities had plenty of recharging racks and were often full of power cartridges. _

_Since its introduction in 2015 A.D., the M20-A heavy pistol has been adapted by many elements of the Resistance as a carbine or sub machinegun-type weapon, especially among covert teams and those which the humans refer to as "SCI-TECH" and "TECH/COM"; technical commandos and highly intelligent raiders who often operate in restricted areas and environments where the power of a full size energy weapon is needed but the overall bulk of a full sized plasma projector would be detrimental to operating conditions and speed on the move. Several factory lots of the weapon have also fallen into the hands of Human raiders and the M20-A is seeing wider dispersion among the Resistance as the older M-25 becomes harder to find or field. In three instances, ELINT forces have recovered weapons which not only appear to have been adapted to a human built reinforced stock, but also two which were mounted with the primitive optical enhancement sights using salvaged parts from several Endoskeleton models and mounted with crude mounts thus proving that the humans are readily adapting captured technology to their needs, a fact that greatly disturbed SKYNET. Other later examples included swivel point attachments for over and under combat slings, clip-on magazine stacking, auxiliary infra-red and / or high intensity white light devices and what appeared to be a bolt on collapsible / adjustable stock for use by humans in improving long distance accuracy._

* * *

And weapon number 2, the M16A2 5.56mm assault rifle

"Jack, what about martin? He still hasn't returned from the LA mission" Smith stated worry spread across her face

Jack looked at her and gave a sigh as he thought of the current situation; on one hand he had an entire machine army preparing to take a big shit on his doorstep and on the other his best friend and loyal comrade was missing in action, he knew what he was going to do even before he thought about it.

"Smith, I will take a chopper and head to where our last communications with Martin was, I'm leaving you in charge of taking care of the machines, understand?" Jack answered, smith quickly nodded. Before Jack could walk out of the room Raimundo stormed in and yelled "What the hell are you doing in here Jack?! Don't you know we're under heavy attack!?!" Jack rubbed his hand through his red hair in an attempt to calm himself, why did Raimundo have to be at the right place at the wrong time?

"Listen, Rai, Martin hasn't reported back to base, hence, if I don't go get him Smith will shove a plasma pistol up my ass, so you can either go to your station and fight of the Terminators, which are more than likely not even going to make a dent in this fortress, or you can come with me to go save martins ass" Jack spoke calmly but with a strong willed expression etched on his face.

Raimundo thought for a moment "Alright I'll come but Jack for the love of Humanity please tell me you were going to activate the FACIDS system before you left" Raimundo said Jack slapped his hand to his face '_that's what I forgot!'_ "Uh…" Was jacks only reply

Raimundo merely shook his head before saying "turn on the defense system and then meet me in aircraft hanger C2" Raimundo turned around and closed the door behind him, Jack nodded to himself and went to turn the system on.

Upon arrival at the hanger Jack wasn't surprised to see the entire entrance defense force attempting to fend off the seemingly endless horde of killing machines flowing through the mountain pass-

**

* * *

INFORMATION—T-800-888—**

_A logical advance over the T600 model, the T800 model used higher technology to produce a unit that was 20% lighter and 40% more powerful. The T800's advanced sensor package was the best that SKYNET could produce, edging past the Series 1200 Scout in some ranges. The T800 was fully armored in a hyperalloy sheath around vital areas, with critical components being housed in case-hardened constructions. Its nuclear plant was heavily armored and in the event of critical damage, a secondary power source was installed to allow the unit a margin of time to continue / complete its mission. The T800 used frictionless bearings in its joints allowing the unit to maneuver through its range of motions faster than the T600. Bursts of sustained high speed no longer threatened the joint assemblies._

_The main advantage of the T800 series over the earlier series was that the T800 was built with the most advanced control system that SKYNET could produce, a mechanical imitation of the human brain; a fiber-wafer neural net processor. When set to autonomous mode, it could 'learn' like a human, actually becoming more efficient as time went on and experience built. The first initial production units were sent into the field and were recalled after several missions so that their data could be downloaded and analyzed by SKYNET._

_Many T800s were produced in a single variant; the 800 Series Model 101 Cyborg or CYBernetic ORGanism, a hybrid of specially grown synthetic living tissue covering the microprocessor controlled hyperalloy armored endoskeleton. Using advanced techniques, SKYNET finally produced a machine capable of passing as a human. Bad breath, body odor, sweat, blood, tears, and a host of other bodily excretions made the organic camouflage package perfect. A T800 with custom vat grown skin could pass for a human 95% of the time, unless a trained spotter dog was present. Moderate to heavy damage to the unit would reveal the armored endoskeleton under the organic camouflage and thus corrupt the infiltration process._

_The organic camouflage was unique in that it had a high rate of self healing and regenerative capacities, on the order of seven to one of that of a normal human being. Specialized repair units were equipped to graft on dermal patches of new skin to repair the organic camouflage in the field, but heavily damaged units often required that the organic camouflage be removed (via a process of flash incineration), repairs completed, and a new organic camouflage coating applied. The process took upwards of fifteen hours to complete, from the time that the endoskeleton was placed in the synthetic tissue generating vat-womb to the time that the Cyborg emerged. Reprogramming of the Cyborg via a spinal and cranial tap included protocols on how to imitate and mimic human behavior, known social nuances, and a restriction on the movement of the joints, which would more appropriately simulate the range of motion that a human could produce, rather than a machine. Early combat trials of the Cyborg units found that the full range of motion that the endoskeletons were capable of would surpass the elastic boundary of the organic camouflage, thus ripping or tearing the camouflage. This accidental damage to the organic camouflage would often reveal the Infiltrator for its true nature. Subsequent examinations of the rather limited range limits of human motion (as conducted in SKYNET's automated labs using a variety of techniques on live test subjects) produced a definitive set of protocols for the limiting or reduction in range of motion that was to accompany all Cyborg Infiltration / Terminator units. Once the organic camouflage was invalidated, the range of motion limitations were relegated to sub-duty in the processor array and full motion subroutines were again restored for maximum combat effectiveness._

_Collaborated field reports of T800 units infiltrating underground Résistance bunkers and achieving complete tactical success were common. The casualty rates claimed for the T800 series, especially the Cyborg variant, were far greater than that of the T600; on the order of 200 to 1 and climbing. Many Cyborg variants were produced, with each 'model' including a slightly different height, hair color, hair style, hair texture, skin color, eye color, etc. The same style of unit was never used twice in one area for tactical considerations and SKYNET kept its variants in constant rotation._

_The T800 became the main ground unit of SKYNET in the later years of the war, with total production eclipsing the other T series combined. Many thousands of T800s were operated in automatic mode, directly linked to SKYNET's tactical servers._

_T-888_

_The latest and most dangerous model, the T-888, fully able to manipulating any and all human physical capabilities, Has also been known to use camouflage from time to time, even when equipped with living human organic tissue. The T-888 is SKYNET's pride and joy, when in human 'form' these highly advanced and highly dangerous terminators are almost completely undetectable, even by animals._

_Not much is known to the Résistance about the T-888 only that they are 70% stronger than an average T-800 and is suspected to be a prototype series for an upcoming model of terminator, one that Jack Spicer is highly anxious of._

_It is also relatively known that the T-888 has some unknown connection with the even more mysterious and only three times seen model TKO-744 'female' model that had been seen entering and exiting Résistance bunkers. The whereabouts of the beloved Résistance fighter is unknown. But what is most unusual about this model is that it is found, via Terminator chips, that SKYNET is hunting down this very same model and with the resistance leader's most feared enemy, even more feared than SKYNET itself, the Terminatrix or rather T-X terminator, is the machine hunting this model._

_The T-X model is known only to higher up officers within the Resistance, Jack included, the Terminatrix is not only one of the most effective human killer but also a even more effective Terminator killer, designed from the original model of the T-1000, the T-X's skin is not made of living human tissue, but like the T-1000, poly-alloy was used to be able to change into the form of any creature its size, but, the T-X could only change into a Creature matching its size not a inanimate object due to its new and magnificent Endoskeleton._

_SKYNET had learned from its mistake of making the T-1000, with the help of its humiliating defeat by Jack Spicer in the year 2017, soon went straight back to the drawing board and thus after six months of non stop research it had finally come up with a solution; the problem was the T-1000 was to…flexible, to put it simply, the reason for its destruction was that it was wobbly and unbalanced thus getting it to fall into the metal refinery at the resistance's main industrial factory under the Cheyenne mountain complex. The answer to the problem had been to add a nano refined metal to an even newer designed endoskeleton that, for complete flexibility and stealth, was made accurate to a physically attractive female. The second mistake of making the T-000 model was the fact that SKYNET barley had any, if at all, control over the liquid Terminator, but using the poly alloy morphed with an Endoskeleton allowed SKYNET to control the Terminatrix via Chip_

_The T-X was given the latest and greatest in SKYNET's weapons arsenal; both arms internally held P83's plasma cannon, a smaller yet ten times more effective RSB 80, it's legs held in twenty nuclear-energy cell's all nine times more advanced than ones equipped towards the T-800 series, in its chest housed it's fiber-wafer neural net processor, it's brain, able to operate as fast, if not more, as SKYNET's brain does. In its head held the T-X's poly-alloy physical control system. The greatest machine SKYNET had ever created and instead of ordering it to hunt down and kill all resistance leaders, it was used to hunt down the machine that called itself 'Luna'_

* * *

-Which were equipped with either gattling guns or RSB-80's-

_**

* * *

RSB-80**_

_The RSB-80 was long and heavy, nearly two meters in length and weighing in at over 40 kilograms fully fueled. The RSB-80 excelled as a light rapid fire tactical support weapon and was used in a variety of different models and chassis combinations produced by SKYNET. The rapid cycling Type 3 Level VII containment bottle gave the plasma bolts a greater integrity hand-off field envelope, producing a much stronger bolt over a longer distance. In single shot mode, the RSB-80, when mounted to a stable chassis, could make precision shots out to maximum effective range. The explosive decoupling of material struck by the high power bolt meant that there was less effective means of cover for human targets and that even a near miss might result in lethal plasma or fragment based spall._

_The RSB-80 proved popular with the humans as well though its weight and mass was troublesome. Too heavy for an average human to pick up and wield, the RSB-80, like most of SKYNET's other large frame high gain plasma guns, was easily adaptable to a variety of standard NATO support tripods and ad hoc custom built mounts, some powered, others not. It was inevitable that the technology of the RSB-80 would fall into human hands and tentative deep penetration raids by Endoskeleton units often found captured RSB-80 guns mounted to where they could be used to defend avenues of approach to the human warrens and reserves. The RSB-80 proved to be an effective anti-material weapon as well, as was documented by many instances of penetrating Endoskeleton units falling to rapid damage matrixes incurred from repeated hits at close range by the high gain plasma guns._

_The newer T600 series Terminators and later series of heavy combat bipeds were not only equipped with the enhanced hydraulics and reinforced frame / chassis to carry and brace the RSB-80 series weapons, but they were also programmed to take advantage of the RSB-80's unique operational characteristics. The RSB-80 formed the core weapon selection of the heavy tracked HKs in the beginning, being the mainstay of the movement from the cumbersome and mechanically complex chain-fed heavy weapons to the more simple yet effective liquid fueled plasma weapons. Only later in 2015 A.D. was the RSB-80 series weapon replaced in main attrition unit production by the higher capacity RSB-125 series of high gain plasma guns. The use of the newer high gain plasma guns didn't remove the RSB-80 from active use, it was merely relegated to a secondary echelon of deployment, being used in many different roles from autonomous gun emplacements and pillbox type bunkers guarding key areas to being carried by individual Terminators and Infiltrators on deep penetration missions and underground bunker raids. The power of the RSB-80 was incredible within its effective range and still had good anti-personnel capacity out to almost its maximum range. This performance envelope allowed SKYNET's units to quickly eliminate any threat subjects in the effective range despite those targets being in relatively hard cover._

_History shows that about one in twenty-five Endoskeleton units operating in coordinated effort on the battlefield were equipped with a RSB-80 weapon, and it seems likely that this was done more out of a squad support type role in the overall order of battle. The RSB-80 was also used in a variety of static defense positions at SKYNET controlled installations, mainly in powered remote gun emplacements with independent sensor and scanner as well as target tracking and acquisition / engagement systems. Power was usually supplied through dedicated ground lines along with fueling conduits for the plasma intake manifolds. Backup power and fuel systems were also included in the design of the automated turrets._

* * *

"Shit! These 'Nator motherfuckers just won't die will they?!" Screamed a Résistance soldier kneeling in a foxhole with his plasma rifle propped up out of the hole; firing at the insane amount of T-800, and making matters worse, the terminators were ALL equipped with RSB-80's; not the best enemy to fight.

"How long until Major sets the FACIDS system to operate" Asked the soldier's partner, Just as the other man was about to reply, thousands of gunshots and explosions were head al over and around them. They turned to see what it was only to witness every Machine either get blown to pieces or shot to the point were you wouldn't be able to tell what it was before it had been destroyed.

Bullets riddled the ground as well as the metallic devils, the HK transports made an attempt to escape but the attempt was shot out of the sky, literally, by the Surface to Air Missile; Phoenix missile, destroying all three transports upon impact. The resistance soldiers on the ground gave cries of victory as a helicopter flew overhead heading to Area 51, the place which Martin was last seen.

Inside the helicopter were two men; Jack and Raimundo, both sat silently at their sides of the helicopter, Raimundo as the pilot and Jack as the gunner. Raimundo and Jack never really got passed the whole Xiaolin vs. Heylin war but at the moment the Human vs. Machine war was a tad bit more important.

"So you and Kimiko are getting married right?" Jack yelled over the sound of the choppers blades "Yeah, though I think Kimiko might be pregnant!" Jack let out a hoarse laugh "You lucky bastard!" both men fell into a fit of laughter "Don't worry; I'm sure you'll find a woman someday! There's always Smith!" Raimundo commented "Are you kidding? Martin would kill me faster than a machine would!" once again the two leaders couldn't help but break into another fit of hilarity as the helicopter steadily headed towards its coordinates.

* * *

Winn approached the door and patched into a control plate with a small probe. He punched out the coded sequence he had recovered from a damaged HK's internal terminal, and then hurriedly stepped away. Locking bolts were electronically slammed back and the door cracked open, accompanied by the hiss-whoosh of a vacuum being filled.

Connor stepped across the threshold, aimed her combat light at the far side of the room, and then gaped. Fuentes and Winn came up behind her, adding their lights to hers.

They were looking at a massive machine press that filled floor to ceiling. Still warm feeder pipes emerged from the walls and centered on the steaming press, forming a hub, or a web. They walked underneath them to the place where the two 20-ton plates met and peered within the small gap there. It was only large enough for a single person to step between and there was an indention in each of the plates, an indention in the shape of a man. Connor squinted at something gleaming at the edge of a small round opening positioned where the neck of a man would be in the lower indention. She squatted and shined her light at what had caught her eye. She carefully extended the tip of her plasma rifle down into the indention, using the barrel of the well used weapon to prod what appeared to be a large drop of liquid mercury. As the barrel of her rifle touched the liquid it flowed onto the barrel of his rifle and seemed to soak in, disappearing. Connor carefully withdrew her rifle from the indention and held it out in front of herself, shining her light on the blackened snout of the weapon. Fuentes and Winn joined her and again added the illumination from their lights to hers.

Fuentes was the first to speak as Connor turned her weapon slowly one way and then the other, studying the barrel and snout.

"Where did it go?"

Winn was studying the snout of the weapon as only one of Jack's technicians / scientists could, as if he were a man about to see God. Winn carefully edged his face closer to the barrel of the weapon, and then drew in a heavy breath, pulling back a good foot, unaware that he had even been holding his breath. Winn could discern a subtle lump, maybe only two millimeters or so higher than the original surface of the barrel of the weapon, covering it completely and circumferentially.

"It's right there..." Winn said, whispering, and then realizing that he was whispering.

"Where?" Fuentes asked.

Fuentes was beginning to become impatient. He was a soldier, and not one who thought deeply, but he was a good soldier nonetheless, one of the best in Spicer's army. That was why Jack had chosen him as one of Connor's personal guard. Fuentes needed a target to hit, not a theory to try to reason out. That was for people like Winn, people that Jack hand picked people like Fuentes to guard with their lives.

"There on the end of the barrel of the gun..."

Fuentes involuntarily winced at Winn's nomenclature for the rifle but he let it pass with a reserved sigh.

"... It appears that the liquid has bonded to the material of the barrel and mimicked it almost flawlessly. Amazing..."

Fuentes huffed and shifted his own rifle on its sling to a more comfortable position. He shifted the beam of his combat light to the upper layers of the chamber that they were standing in. It was hot in here, humid; whatever the press had been used to create had taken a lot of pressure, a lot of heat, and apparently, a lot of energy. His light cast a visible beam through the steam as his mind took in the truly incredible machine that they had discovered, and the part of his brain that constructed the darkest of nightmares, began to work on his subconscious.

Winn had found God. And, given enough time, Winn was going to dissect Him piece by piece. None of them knew at the time that the god that they were looking at was composed of billions of pieces, each with a vehement and feral hatred of the human race.

* * *

Jack and Raimundo exited the helicopter and walked steadily to the entrance of Satellite dish tower B and walked op the stairs heading towards the area in which Martin was last contacted.

Jack and Raimundo approached the safe like doors and stood at each side of the door with their weapons drawn; Raimundo had an M25A plasma pistol holding it pointed to the ceiling while Jack held a SIG P226 handgun ready in both of his hands while pointing it to the floor. Rai and Jack looked at each other before Jack started to mouth "one…two…" Jack moved to the front of the door and yelled "THREE!!!" as he smashed his foot to the doorknob, busting the door open Jack and Rai ran into the room.

The rays of the sun blared through the blinds of the windowed office sending streaked lines and shadows across the floor. The entire office was void of life while a the only thing that seemed to be making any movement or noise was the flies buzzing around to the far left of the room which lead of two another room passed a corner.

"Jack?" called a voice from the other room.

"Martin is that you?" Rai asked as he started to head to the corner of the hall leading to the room.

"Raimundo wait!" jack ordered but it was to late as the moment Rai was about to reach the end of the hall, out-stepped (You guessed it!) a T-800 terminator unit, it's red optic sensors seemed to close in as it stared down at Rai with it's head tilting down in what seemed to be a wicked grin. Raimundo's feet skidded to a stop as he slid to the floor at the fear and surprise of the appearance of the machine. The machine rose its foot in preparation to smash Raimundo under it's weight but was caught off guard as several gunshots rang out in the corridors, the metal chassis protecting the T-800's fuel cell was gaining new holes with each passing second.

"Rai get the fuck up and get over-"Jack was never able to finish as the back of his vest was pulled to the right then to the left as something threw Jack through a wall leading to another office which, thanks to Jack's horrid sense of luck, ended with him landing on a table then falling off.

Raimundo quickly rolled to the left as the terminators foot landed at the spot that he once laid making the terminators foot go through the floor causing the floor collapse bringing the terminator with it while reluctantly it went through every floor below that until it inevitably smashed into the bottom marble floor. A smile adorned Rai's face as he watched the machine get its as whooped by the floors but his attention was turned away from the sight as he saw Jack get thrown through another wall, all this wall breaking and floor smashing was getting a little cliché for him.

Raimundo pulled his plasma pistol from the floor next to his feet while the terminator fighting beating the crap out of Jack and started to fire at its dirty chrome skull, using the moment of distraction to his advantage, Jack reached for his SIG 556 Assault rifle that had fallen from his back when he was thrown through the wall, once he held it he fired at the place where a man's heart would be, shielded in a case-hardened subassembly inside the hyperalloy torso, was the nuclear-energy cell. It supplied power to run the most sophisticated system of hydraulic actuators and servo-motors ever constructed enough power to run the lights of a small city for a day. It was designed to last the Terminator considerably longer, especially if intense activity was varied with conservation procedures. The bullets were getting through the machines chest until finally Jack hit the energy cell and he knew exactly what was about to happen.

The machine fell to its 'knees' as its hands clutched at its 'chest' trying to retrieve the energy cell, the light whine that reached higher tones which each passing second only reminded Jack of the impending doom that staying at the spot he lay would bring. Jack lifted himself up and quickly moved over to Raimundo who also was panicking.

Looking around the room Jack saw a window office down the hall in the corner that had a window reaching from the ceiling to the floor. Jack grabbed Rai's arm and started running to the window, Jack fired at the window breaking the glass just before he and Rai jumped through the four story window.

The Machine finally opened its Energy cell chasses but was too late as it glowed red nuclear heat before exploding. Jack and Rai had luckily jumped a far enough distance to not be consumed from the flames but the blast from the explosion propelled the two farther sending them rolling to the ground in the fettle position.

The entire satellite dish collapsed under in a burning red miniature mushroom cloud. Raimundo let out a scream of pain as he clutched his leg which was bleeding with a sharp metal shard sticking out of it. Jack rose to his feet clutching his ribs that he could already tell a few were cracked, again. He limped over to Rai as he dug into one of his vest pockets and pulled out a needle and a small bottle with big black letters saying **Morphine **across the top.

Jack put the cap of the needle in his mouth as he sat next to Raimundo, pulling of the cap he put the syringe into the small bottle and started filling it until it reached a number then pulled it out, flicked it a few times and then stabbed it into Rai's arm and released the morphine. Within a few seconds Rai' grunts of pain slowed to a stop as he his breathing eased into ragged ones.

"Thank you" Rai whispered as he leaned his head on Jacks shoulder "I needed that" he smiled.

"Well sorry to tell you but if I don't get that piece of metal out of your leg your going to be all doped out in your gave instead of right next to me" Jack stated pulling out a bottle of premium brand whiskey. Raimundo cringed when he saw the bottle but he slowly nodded showing that he was ready for the excruciating pain that not even morphine could evade.

Jack ripped the metal shard from his leg barley earning a grunt from the man but when he opened the bottle and started pouring whiskey all over the wound Raimundo started to scream bloody murder. Jack had to cover his mouth so that he couldn't alert nearby patrols were exactly they were but he also knew that the two didn't have much time before a group of scouts come to investigate the cause of the explosion so he hurried as fast as he could and ripped a piece of Rai's coat and tied it around his wound hoping that it would stop the bleeding long enough for the two to get away.

Jack draped Raimundo's arm over his shoulder while using the strength left to pick him up and attempt to walk o the helicopter that hopefully Raimundo could stay awake long enough to help Jack fly them out of there. One thing was for sure, they were to late to save Martin.

* * *

A/N sorry for the length of this chapter but the next chapter is going to be good.


End file.
